World Kidney Day (WKD) is celebrated every year on the second Thursday of March. It is the global awareness campaign to raise awareness of the importance of kidneys to our health and to reduce the impact of kidney disease and its associated health problems worldwide. 1 in 10 people is affected by kidney disease globally.

World Kidney Day is a joint initiative of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) and the International Federation of Kidney Foundations (IFKF).

World Kidney Day is being celebrated on second Thursday i.e. March 11 this year with the theme “Living well with Kidney disease”.

The theme focuses on to increase awareness and educate more people about kidney disease management and empowering patients. It is about supporting kidney patients and their caregivers in the time of pandemic.

Kidney disease burden:

• Approx., 195 million women are affected by Kidney diseases worldwide.
• Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is the 6th fastest growing cause of death.
• Around 1.7 million people are estimated to die annually because of acute kidney injury (AKI) globally.

Challenges to kidney health:

Despite the growing burden of kidney diseases worldwide, kidney health disparity and inequity are still widespread. Transplantation has high set up costs with regards to infrastructure and requires highly specialized teams, availability of organ donors and cannot be done without dialysis backup. Physical and legal infrastructure requirements and cultural bias against organ donation often present barriers in many countries, making dialysis the default option.

What is Chronic Kidney Disease?

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a progressive loss in kidney function over a period of months or years. When kidney function falls below a certain point it is called kidney failure and untreated kidney failure can be life-threatening which requires dialysis or a kidney transplant to maintain life. Chronic kidney disease may be caused by diabetes, high blood pressure and other disorders. Early detection and treatment can often keep chronic kidney disease from getting worse. CKD and AKI often arise from the social conditions such as poverty, gender discrimination, lack of education, occupational hazards and pollution among others.

Eight golden rules to keep your kidneys healthy:

• Keep fit, be active
• Eat a healthy diet
• Check and control your blood sugar
• Check and control your blood pressure
• Take appropriate fluids during day
• Don’t smoke
• Don’t take over-the-counter anti-inflammatory/ pain-killer pills regularly
• Get your kidney function checked if you have one or more of the ‘high risk’ factors          

You should know:

• Kidney diseases are silent killers. Early chronic kidney disease has no signs or symptoms.
• Chronic kidney disease usually does not go away.
• Blood and urine tests are used to check for kidney disease.
• Kidney disease can be treated. The earlier diagnosis of CKD gives better chances of receiving effective treatment.
• Diabetes and high blood pressure are key risk factors for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).
• Kidney disease can progress to kidney failure. 

Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Programme*:

National Dialysis Programme under National Health mission is an initiative of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. It was rolled out in 2016 with involvement of public private partnership (PPP Mode) at District Hospitals. The objective of this programme is to provide important life-saving procedure close to the community and also for reducing impoverishment on account of out of pocket expenditure for patients.

References:

• https://www.worldkidneyday.org/2021
• *http://nhm.gov.in/images/pdf/NHM/NHMGuidelines/Operational_Guidelines_for_Dialysis_Programme.pdf
• https://www.theisn.org/advocacy/world-kidney-day