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In February, in conjunction with WCN’22, the ISN held a meeting with leaders of ISN Affiliated Societies to discuss their achievements over the past two years and strengthen existing ties between ISN and its Affiliated Societies.

ISN President Agnes Fogo and ISN Secretary-General and Treasurer Fergus Caskey moderated session one, which covered North America and the Caribbean, Latin America and Western Europe, Africa, and Eastern and Central Europe ISN regions. 

All the societies continue to evolve to best address the needs of their regions:  

• Dr. Paul Cockwell presented recent activities from the UK Kidney Association (UKKA). Having recently merged with two former societies, the UKKA presented a new website. They recently launched the UK renal registry to collect data from all renal centers and hospitals within the country to address the lack of real-time data on acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease, and pre-dialysis patients. The UKKA leads a national meeting, “UK Kidney Week,”  that will take place in a hybrid format from June 7-9, 2022. The conference has over 1000 registrants from the UK and beyond.  

• Dr. Koivuviita Niina presented on the Finnish Society of Nephrology,  established more than 52 years ago, outlining their new guidelines to increase kidney transplantations and home dialysis to treat CKD stages 4-5. Access the guidelines here.  

• Davy Ip Min Wan presented activities from the Mauritius Renal Association. They are advocating for health services to set up a kidney patient education and support team to help them make timely and informed choices about their care. Many patients delay making the decision to take dialysis until very late, and the take-up of peritoneal dialysis is negligible. Other challenges include a lack of training programs, pediatric nephrology, and research initiatives.

Vivekanand Jha, ISN Past President, and Masaomi Nangaku, ISN President-elect, moderated session two, which covered the Middle East, NIS and Russia, North and East Asia, Oceania and Southeast Asia, and South Asia ISN Regions. 

The societies in attendance presented recent highlights from their activities: 

• Dr. Vinant Bhargava presented several recent initiatives from the Indian Society of Nephrology, including online workshops for general practitioners on research methodology and interventional nephrology. They quickly developed new guidelines on dialysis and transplantations during the pandemic.  

• Dr. David Johnson, speaking on behalf of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology, introduced its vision to promote kidney health through advocacy, research, and education while committing to initiatives to promote gender, equity, and diversity. Find out more about their activities here.  

• Dr. Pramod Kumar Chhetri presented initiatives from the Nepal Society of Nephrology (NSN). They recently developed a new working guideline on providing dialysis to patients with and without the COVID-19 infection, which they submitted to the Nepal government.  

They also worked closely with the department of health services and the ministry of health to develop a series of manuals on the care and treatment of hemodialysis patients.   

• Dr. Halim Gafor presented updates from the Malaysian Society of Nephrology (MSN), hosts of the recent WCN’22, providing details of their public kidney care awareness and primary care education programs as well as the educational grants it offers. 

The MSN hosts a website dedicated to patients and a telegram service for patients to ask questions. They will launch a new training program in June.  

• Dr.Muhammad Rafiqul Alam outlined how the ISN Affiliated Societies’ network has helped the Bangladesh Renal Association collaborate with the Indian Society of Nephrology, and the ISN, to move government policy to better address kidney health.  

• Dr. Elena Zakharova from the Russian Dialysis Society presented the society’s plans to expand the registry beyond kidney replacement therapy patients to all CKD patients in collaboration with ISN initiatives.  

The event provided a timely opportunity for societies from different parts of the world to strengthen connections and learn from each other’s initiatives. Notably, the Mauritius Renal Association and the South African Renal Society  agreed to initiate a future collaboration.