On 28 April, EKHA joined the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) in celebrating its Action Day. This year’s Action Day’s theme centred around inequalities in organ transplantation and on opportunities for transforming the organ transplantation landscape in Europe during the 2024-2029 period. ESOT’s recently released manifesto, “Tackling Inequalities in...
A newly published EKHA paper considers the topic of altruistic donation. In “Facts and myths about altruistic organ donation”, published in Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Sever and colleagues shed light on the facts and myths that surround altruistic kidney donation, a rare phenomenon that entails individuals donating kidneys to kidney patients...
A newly released EKHA article focuses on advances in the science and care of kidney diseases. In “A new era in the science and care of kidney diseases”, released in Nature Reviews Nephrology, Zoccali and colleagues highlight how advances in pharmaceutical development, research technologies, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine hold...
On April 3, 2024, Nature Reviews Nephrology published a landmark international consensus statement titled “Chronic Kidney Disease and the Global Public Health Agenda: An International Consensus”. The statement was authored by a group of experts and stakeholder organisations, including the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), the European Renal Association (ERA),...
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) impacts some 850 million people around the globe, and kidney disease currently stands as the 8th leading cause of death worldwide. If CKD is not addressed, projections indicate that it will become the 5th leading cause of death by 2040. On 14 March, the European Kidney...
Working hard with EKPF, EUTOX, IMEC, ISN, RENALOO and ISS Fundacion UAM on the PREVENTCKD project to better prevent CKD from happing in the future. The objectives of PREVENTCKD are: Increase awareness on the characteristics, implications and impact of CKD at EU population level and EU policy level, Preventing CKD from developing; Screening...
A new EU-funded project – KitNewCare – aims to help health and care systems better embrace environmental sustainability and climate-neutrality, with a focus on kidney care. The project runs from January 2024 to December 2027. At the heart of this initiative is a pressing issue: healthcare systems are significant contributors to...
On 25 January 2024, EKHA organised a workshop on organ donation and transplantation in the European Union (EU). This workshop was convened with the support of the Hungarian Permanent Representation to the EU. It provided a unique occasion for assessing opportunities and challenges in the field, in anticipation of the...
EKHA’s President Raymond Vanholder recently published an editorial in Diatra. The article addresses transplantation in Germany in a European context, highlighting the reasons behind Germany's low transplant rate. Notably historical issues, and the lack of political support. Advocacy for comprehensive donation programs and public education is crucial to overcome the...
The European Alliance for Cardiovascular Health (EACH), of which EKHA is a member, recently published several factsheets highlighting the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors in Europe, including one on CKD. Not only is CVD a major risk factor for CKD, but CKD patients are also at...
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.
