Saving Young Lives in Africa and Asia
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Saving Young Lives is a collaborative project that is developing sustainable programs for treating acute kidney injury (AKI) in sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia.
Children and young adults continue to die in large numbers in the developing world as a direct result of reversible acute kidney injury (AKI). AKI can be prevented in many cases – often by simple treatments (e.g. fluid and electrolyte administration) or prompt treatment of infection. But, some people whose kidneys fail will still require specialist care in hospitals, which may include short-term dialysis treatment. The ideal type of dialysis in this setting is peritoneal dialysis [PD] because of its technical simplicity.
The Saving Young Lives project works in low-resource health settings, to help establish and maintain hospital centers for care of AKI including facilities for acute PD. The project will also focus on training and education in the community to improve awareness and equip local health practitioners for prevention, as well as identification of cases needing hospital care.
Saving Young Lives is a unique project – with four equal partners each bringing their complementary missions and expertise. The four partners are (in alphabetical order): IPNA (International Pediatric Nephrology Association), ISN (International Society of Nephrology), ISPD (international Society for Peritoneal Dialysis), SKCF (Sustainable Kidney Care Foundation).
IPNA, ISN, and ISPD lead the education and training of physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals needed to support the programs. These three professional societies have no role in meeting the direct costs of patients care. SKCF on the other hand uses its resources and expertise to enable PD programs to start by making available PD catheters, PD fluid and other necessary consumables, but only in the context of a contractual agreement that the host hospital will in due course take on the long term costs of the program.
The project builds on success at the pilot site, the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC), in Moshi, Tanzania in which SKCF and ISN were both involved, and which the Saving Young Lives project continues to support. Other centers in sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia are now being established.
Five years of funding (2012-2016) has been given by a charitable foundation to enable the Saving Young Lives project to get underway.
Steering Committee
John Feehally (Chair), ISN- International Society for Nephrology
Mary Carter, SKCF – Sustainable Kidney Care Foundation: www.skcf.net/
Mignon Mc Culloch, IPNA – International Pediatric Nephrology Association, www.ipna-online.org/
Frederic Finkelstein, ISPD – International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis www.ispd.org/
William Smoyer, IPNA – International Pediatric Nephrology Association www.ipna-online.org/
Contact
For more information please contact Ariane Brusselmans from the ISN HQ.