The World Health Assembly, the decision-making body for the World Health Organisation (WHO), is debating whether to make kidney health a priority at its May 2025 meeting in Geneva.
Here in the UK this would elevate the importance of chronic kidney disease (CKD) prevention and care to our government, and support CKD being prioritised as much as other diseases.
Adopting a resolution to prioritise CKD could also support much needed kidney care in low- and middle-income countries as well.
What Kidney Care UK is doing
You might have seen us asking you to sign and share a petition to raise awareness of this resolution. Thank you to everyone who signed, and you can still sign the petition today:
With the UK Kidney Association and other UK kidney charities we have written to parliamentarians and chief medical officers across the UK to ask them to urge the government to support the resolution. We have also arranged to meet with UK government representatives.
We thank the MPs who have raised Parliamentary Questions on this issue at our request, including Sorcha Eastwood, Daisy Cooper and Mohammed Yasin.
In response to these questions, the UK government has said:
. . . if adopted, the resolution will apply to the UK as a Member State of the WHO. We remain committed to tackling NCDs (non-communicable diseases), including kidney disease, domestically and internationally.
Fiona Loud, our Policy Director, will be going to the World Health Assembly to speak about why we want to see the resolution passed, using her professional and personal experience of kidney disease.
We have also been working with the International Society of Nephrology to share the patient view on this work, as members of their Patient Liason Group. They have more information and a handy explainer for the resolution on their site.
What is the WHO draft resolution asking for?
The resolution is asking its member states and the Director General to:
- Promote global awareness and education on kidney disease
- Enhance prevention and early detection
- Support access to affordable and quality Treatment
- Strengthen health systems for kidney disease management
WHO has recognised that non-communicable diseases (diseases that are not passed from person to person) such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, are now a major and often preventable cause of premature death throughout the world. WHO leads programmes to encourage government action on prevention and control of these conditions. However, it does not currently include CKD as a priority area within non-communicable diseases. This means governments may be less aware of the importance of prevention and treatment of CKD.
In February 2025 the WHO Executive Board voted unanimously to recommend the adoption of a resolution on reducing the burden of non-communicable disease through kidney health promotion and disease prevention at the WHO World Health Assembly meeting in May 2025.
What can I do to support kidney disease being made a priority?
The petition urging the World Health Assembly to make kidney disease a priority is still open. You can get more information and a link to the petition on this page.
You can get more information and download advocacy materials from the International Society of Nephrology.
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Main photo credit: Pan American Health Organisation CC BY-NC-ND 2.0