Nearly half of 4,000 coronavirus patients admitted between February 24 and May 30 to the Mount Sinai Hospital System in New York were found to have developed acute kidney problems, according to a new study.

Despite most never having any issues with the organ before, 46% of patients suffered from some sort of kidney injury while receiving treatment for COVID-19. Among them, nearly 20% required urgent dialysis.

Moreover, over a third of patients who survived the virus did not recover the same level of kidney function they had before contracting the contagion.

With the number of new coronavirus cases continuing to rise, medical experts said the study’s findings point toward the fact that chronic kidney disease will likely become a new urgent health problem nationwide.

“The next epidemic will be chronic kidney disease in the U.S. among those who recovered from the coronavirus,” Dr. Steven Coca, associate professor of nephrology at Mount Sinai Health System and co-founder of RenalytixAI, told CNBC.

“Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic we have seen the highest rate of kidney failure in our lifetimes. It’s a long-term health burden for patients, the medical community and the U.S. economy.”

Before the pandemic, the U.S. was spending roughly $100 billion annually to treat the nearly 40 million Americans suffering from chronic kidney disease, which is the ninth-leading cause of death in the U.S. largely due to increases in obesity and Type 2 diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In another study out of Barcelona, Spain, researchers were able to study COVID-19’s effects on dialysis patients. Out of 400 individuals, twenty-one were infected with the coronavirus, and their mortality rate was found to be 24%.

“These patients need special protection. Many studies have shown that even people without symptoms or with asymptomatic symptoms can carry and pass on the virus. In dialysis units, therefore, we cannot rely on always being able to detect infected patients and to isolate them in time,” Dr. Maria Jose Soler Romeo said in a news release.

“To protect our highly vulnerable patients, it is essential that all the patients and staff be tested on a regular basis in order to minimize the risk of infection in COVID-19 outbreaks. We must continually remind ourselves that, of four coronavirus-positive dialysis patients, one will not survive. Outbreaks in dialysis units must therefore be prevented at all costs.”

There are now more than 18.3 million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, including at least 696,000 deaths, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. has the most cases by far, with nearly 4.7 million confirmed infections and more than 156,000 deaths.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.