CARPHA urges early testing for kidney health

The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) is urg­ing ear­ly test­ing and lifestyle changes as the re­gion ob­serves World Kid­ney Day to­day. The theme this year is Kid­ney Health for All – Car­ing for Peo­ple, Pro­tect­ing the Plan­et.

CARPHA high­lights that chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease (CKD) af­fects mil­lions world­wide, with 15.4% of adults in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean liv­ing with the con­di­tion. The agency notes that ear­ly de­tec­tion of CKD, par­tic­u­lar­ly in peo­ple with di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, obe­si­ty, or a fam­i­ly his­to­ry of kid­ney dis­ease, can re­duce the need for ad­vanced treat­ments and im­prove health out­comes.

CARPHA Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Dr Lisa In­dar said, “Im­prov­ing the pre­ven­tion and con­trol of di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion, en­cour­ag­ing health­i­er di­ets, and in­creas­ing phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are crit­i­cal steps to­ward pro­tect­ing kid­ney health across the Caribbean.”

The agency con­tin­ues to work with Mem­ber States on pre­vent­ing, con­trol­ling, and man­ag­ing non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases. CARPHA has de­vel­oped Guide­lines for the Man­age­ment of Di­a­betes in Pri­ma­ry Care in the Caribbean and pro­motes a Six-Point Pol­i­cy Pack­age aimed at re­duc­ing obe­si­ty, hy­per­ten­sion, and di­a­betes. The Caribbean Moves ini­tia­tive en­cour­ages pre­ven­tive health be­hav­iors to re­duce key risk fac­tors for CKD.

CARPHA al­so col­lab­o­rates with re­gion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion and the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at, to strength­en tech­ni­cal sup­port and poli­cies ad­dress­ing kid­ney health. The agency urges Caribbean cit­i­zens to adopt health­i­er lifestyles and at­tend reg­u­lar health checks to pre­vent or man­age con­di­tions that can lead to CKD.

Glob­al­ly, an es­ti­mat­ed 788 mil­lion adults lived with CKD in 2023, near­ly dou­bling from 378 mil­lion in 1990, high­light­ing the grow­ing health chal­lenge.