Celebrate World Kidney Day 2018!

This year’s World Kidney Day is entitled “Kidneys & Women’s Health: Include, Value, Empower” celebrates kidneys and women’s Health. With World Kidney Day and the International Women’s Day 2018 being commemorated on the same day, this offers a good opportunity to reflect on the importance of women’ s health and specifically their kidney health.

WKD 2018 is the campaign’s 13th anniversary and this year, World Kidney Day’s message is, in essence, to “promote affordable and equitable access to health education, healthcare and prevention for kidney diseases for all women and girls in the world”.

Indeed, the risk of developing CKD is at least as high in women as in men, and may even be higher. According to some studies, CKD is more likely to develop in women compared with men, with an average 14% prevalence in women and 12% in men. However, the number of women on dialysis is lower than the number of men…Likewise, certain kidney diseases like Lupus Nephropathy(akidney disease caused by an autoimmune disease) typically affect women as do kidney infections (as most urinary tract infections) which are more common in women with an increased risk in pregnancy. Finally, Chronic Kidney Disease is considered a risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcome and reduced fertility and in turn, pregnancy-related complications increase the risk of kidney disease.

In view of this, add your voice to World Kidney Day and International Women’s Day 2018 message highlighting the impact of kidney disease on women’s health and the urgent need for targeted, gender-sensitive prevention measures and treatment throughout the lifecycle of women and girls!

Read the Joint Statement, developed in collaboration with the Taskforce on Women and NCDs.

For more information on World Kidney Day 2018, visit: http://www.worldkidneyday.org/