KHUJAND, September 30, 2010, Asia-Plus -- The first dialysis machine has been installed at city hospital # 1 in Khujand, administrative center of Sughd province.

The Sughd health directorate head Dalil Toshmatov says the dialysis machine has been purchased for 400,000 somoni provided from the Sughd regional budget.

Dialysis machine filters a patient''s blood to remove excess water and waste products when the kidneys are damaged, dysfunctional, or missing.  The dialysis machine itself can be thought of as an artificial kidney.  Inside, it consists of more plastic tubing that carries the removed blood to the dialyser, a bundle of hollow fibers that forms a semipermeable membrane for filtering out impurities. In the dialyser, blood is diffused with a saline solution called dialysate, and the dialysate is in turn diffused with blood. Once the filtration process is complete, the cleansed blood is returned to the patient.