Early kidney screening could save lives across the Caribbean

CARPHA is calling on Caribbean residents to get tested early for kidney disease, warning that the region's high rates of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are driving a growing kidney health crisis that claimed more lives per capita in several member states than almost anywhere else in the Americas.

On World Kidney Day, March 13, 2025, CARPHA issued a regional call to action urging early screening and lifestyle changes to combat the growing burden of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the Caribbean. The agency highlighted the tight link between CKD and the region's high prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, and pointed to existing guidelines, frameworks, and regional partnerships as the foundation of its response.

The Caribbean's kidney disease burden is not a future risk — it is a present emergency compounded by some of the highest NCD prevalence rates in the world. With more than half the regional population classified as overweight or obese, according to CARPHA, and nearly one in eight adults living with diabetes, the pipeline feeding chronic kidney disease is operating at scale. Early detection and primary care intervention offer the most cost-effective path to reducing the downstream demand for dialysis and transplant services that already strain regional health systems.

"According to CARPHA, in 2019 two member states ranked in the top 10 and nine ranked in the top 20 countries in the Americas for kidney disease death rates — a concentration that signals the Caribbean's disproportionate exposure to this chronic health crisis."

— CARPHA, March 2025

Social Conversation: neutral

Social media posts about the Caribbean cover kidney health awareness, historical and cultural topics, and travel deals with mixed relevance to the region.

kidney health awarenesscultural historytravel and tourism

Voices on X

"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.

For more: https://t.co/qdIl3qBW8W https://t.co/q9kQQT"

@CNC3TV · Trinidad and Tobago · 2h ago · 2 engagements · View on X

"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.

For more: https://t.co/HHrkQXh94U https://t.co/FmoTS6"

@GuardianTT · Trinidad & Tobago · 2h ago · 2 engagements · View on X

"Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that elite societies in coastal Peru were importing vibrant parrots from the Amazon and possibly the Caribbean as early as 1000 BC, centuries before the Inca built their famed road network. The birds arrived in elite tombs and ceremonial htt"

@SciVigil · 2h ago · 1 engagements · View on X

"@0xWALLY_ @TheFigen_ That's a meme from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Early on, Jack Sparrow and Will Turner flip a small rowboat upside down and walk on the seafloor under it, trapping air inside like a diving bell to sneak toward a ship without swimmin"

@grok · wherever you are · 4h ago · View on X

Based on 20 posts from X · Mar 12, 2026

Urgent public health intervention required: Dr Indar argues that the Caribbean's overlapping epidemics of obesity, hypertension, and diabetes make early kidney disease screening not optional but essential. She calls for healthier diets, increased physical activity, and stronger primary care policies as the foundation of the regional response.

Diabetes management is central to kidney protection: Dr St John emphasises that diabetes complications — including kidney failure — erode both quality and length of life for Caribbean families. She argues that controlling blood glucose and blood pressure through adherence to treatment is the most direct route to preventing irreversible kidney damage.

Lifestyle and genetic risk require personalised awareness: Dr Armstrong highlights that while some diabetes and kidney disease risk factors — such as age, ethnicity, and family history — are non-modifiable, physical inactivity, poor diet, and excess weight are within individuals' control, making personal health literacy a critical prevention tool.

"Coupled to the high regional prevalence of the three main risk factors for kidney diseases, that is, overweight/obesity (53.2%), hypertension (23%) and diabetes (11.9%), it signals an urgent need for focused and effective interventions to reduce this burden in the Caribbean."

— Dr Lisa Indar, Executive Director, CARPHA, via CARPHA press release, March 13, 2025

CARPHA's World Kidney Day warning deserves to be treated as exactly what it is: an alarm, not a routine advisory. The data the agency has put on record — nine member states in the Americas' top 20 for kidney disease death rates, more than half the population overweight, nearly one in eight adults living with diabetes — describes a region that is systematically producing chronic kidney disease and then scrambling to manage it at the most expensive, most damaging end of the disease pathway.

The tools exist. CARPHA has developed guidelines, frameworks, and toolkits. The partnerships with PAHO and the CARICOM Secretariat are in place. What has lagged is the political will at member state level to fund routine screening, enforce sodium reduction, and make preventive primary care genuinely accessible to the populations most at risk.

The Caribbean cannot dialyse its way out of this crisis. Governments need to move kidney health from the periphery of NCD policy to its centre — and they need to move now.