The international scope of kidney disease

 During the Covid-19 pandemic we've all become aware of the importance of public messaging--about wearing masks and other behaviors that reduce the spread of infection, etc.  For those of us interested in transplantation, communication about the prevalence and international scope of kidney disease is important

Here's an article from Kidney International (from a year ago) that focuses on just that:

A single number for advocacy and communication—worldwide more than 850 million individuals have kidney diseases by Kitty J. Jager, Csaba Kovesdy, Robyn Langham, Mark Rosenberg, Vivekanand Jha, Carmine Zoccali

"On a world scale the total number of individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD), acute kidney injury (AKI), and those on renal replacement therapy (RRT) exceeds 850 million, a truly concerning figure that is twice the estimated number of people with diabetes worldwide and >20 times higher than the number of individuals affected by AIDS/HIV worldwide. Thus kidney diseases are one of the most common diseases worldwide.

"CKD is now an unquestionable global public priority.1,  2 Even though the prevalence of CKD and its impact on health has been mainly studied in economically developed countries, the burden of this disease is even greater in developing countries.3,  4 In 2016, this disease was 13th on the list of causes of death on a world scale,5 and in 2040, it is expected to be the 5th leading cause of years of life lost.6 In 2010, 2.6 million individuals were receiving some form of kidney replacement therapy worldwide, but an almost equal number might have died during the same year because of a lack of access to dialysis and transplantation.7 This scenario contrasts with that of other major chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and respiratory diseases, whose effects on mortality are declining."

HT: Mike Rees