On 30 September 2015 a new Resolution was adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on establishing harmonised national living organ donor registries in Europe with the view to facilitating international data sharing. The Resolution sets out the general guidelines for the...
The draft Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2016-2017 in the area of Health, demographic change and well-being has just been released. This is expected to be ratified in mid-October, with calls for proposals coming out in early 2016.The overall strategic orientation for the 'Health, Demographic Change and Well-being'...
The European Commission and the World Health Organisation's Regional Office for Europe (WHO Europe) are renewing their joint commitment to work together towards their shared objective of better health in Europe. At the beginning of the month, Health and Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, and WHO Europe Director, Zsuzsanna Jakab, outlined...
On 10 July 2015, the European Commission published two financing decisions: On the pilot project "The Effect of Differing Kidney Disease Treatment Modalities and Organ Donation and Transplantation Practices on Health Expenditure and Patient Outcomes". The Commission adopted the annual work programme for the implementation of the pilot project and the maximum contribution from...
IMI launches €95 million Call for proposals with focus on Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, patient involvement The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) has launched its 5th Call for proposals under the IMI 2 programme. IMI 2 – Call 5 has a total budget of €95 million and features 6 topics. Of these, four focus...
The Luxembourg Presdiency of the Cuncil of the European Union has published its priorities for the term 1 July- 31 December 2015. Regarding Healht, the Presidency will make every effort to facilitate the creation of a strong regulatory framework providing European citizens with quick access to safe and...
Joint Action Chrodis Report “Health Promotion and Primary Prevention in 14 European countries: a comparative overview of key policies, approaches, gaps and needs” While much has been done in terms of health promotion and primary prevention of chronic diseases across Europe, there are still gaps and needs that require urgent attention. This...
OECD Health Policy Studies, 17 June, 2015 Fewer people are dying from stroke and heart attacks than before, but rising levels of obesity and diabetes, particularly among younger people, are going to push mortality rates higher, according to a new OECD report. The report says that advances in the prevention and treatment of...
A new study published in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal has revealed that tests for kidney function can be equally effective at indicating a patient's risk of heart disease as blood pressure or cholesterol tests. Researchers used the albuminuria and eGFR test results from 24 previous studies of 637,315 patients...
On 9 June, the European Commission published the 2015 work plan for the 3rd Health Programme. With a budget of € 449.4 million, the 3rd EU Health Programme is the main European Commission instrument to implement the EU health strategy, The Programme is mainly implemented through the financing of...
European Kidney Health Alliance
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out via contact form.
