Zambia undertakes first kidney transplant surgery, prez elated

The University Teaching Hospital also known as the Adult Hospital in the Zambian capital Lusaka earlier this week made history with a kidney transplant surgery.

A surgical team at the facility successfully undertook the first ever kidney transplant surgery. The team have since been praised for the efforts.

President Edgar Lungu was not left out of the praise with the president visiting the patients involved in the procedure on Friday.

“I am glad that both the kidney donor and recipient are stable and responding very well to treatment. We are forever greatful to the medical specialists who worked so hard to make this operation a success,” the president wrote on Facebook.

In February 2018, surgeons in Zambia also sucessfully separated seven-month-old conjoined twins in a landmark operation in the capital. The surgery was done at the Women and New Born hospital in Lusaka.

“A lot of progress has been made. In fact great progress, … the twins have been separated. They were separated at exactly 16:58 hours.

“However, there is still a lot to be done in terms of closing up the wounds and we anticipate that the surgery will continue for an hour and a half to two hours. We hope by 20:00 hours they will be in ICU,” said Dr Maureen Chisembele, a senior medical superintendent told the media.

A team of 30 health professionals operated the twins who are joined at the abdomen and shared a liver. Reports indicate that it took seven hours to execute the mission and the children have left the operating theater.

The children – Bupe and Mapalo, were born in the town of Kawambwa located in Zambia’s northern Luapula region but they were transferred to the capital for further attention.