DW BUREAU / chandigrah Deptt. of Nephrology, PGIMER launched a Websitewww.indiakpd.org to facilitate Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) at an event organized to mark the observance of World Kidney Day on March 10. World Kidney Day is observed every year on the second Thursday of March, as a global campaign to raise awareness about kidney disease. Prof. Jagat Ram, Director PGIMER was the occasion as the Chief Guest and formally inaugurated the website launched to help incompatible donor-recipient pairs find optimal donors.Other dignitaries marking their personal presence included Prof. Gurpreet Singh, Dean (Research) & Head, Deptt. of General Surgery, Kumar Gaurav Dhawan, DDA, Kumar Abhay, FA, Prof. H.S.Kohli, Head, Deptt. of Nephrology, Prof. Manish Rathi, Dr. Raja Ram Chandran, faculty members and resident doctors from the Deptt. of Nephrology, PGIMER. Commending the initiative of the department, Prof. Jagat Ram, Director PGIMER stated, "The status of the department in the global nephrology arena can be assessed by the fact that both the presidents of International and American Society of Nephrology are PGI alumni, PGI is also amongst the largest transplant centres in the public sector in the country, and they continued to transplant during COVID times; none of transplants done during last year had any complication of severe COVID illness." The Director further shared, "Nephrology department took the challenge of COVID 19 head on and provided round the clock dialysis facility at the COVID hospital at NHE in PGI. Indeed, over 1500 dialysis in COVID positive patients have been done. Events like these bring hope to those who are suffering from this disease." Prof H.S. Kohli, Head, Deptt. of Nephrology said, " The burden of Chronic kidney failure is huge in India, more than 12 crore people battle this illness. Every year close to 3 lakh end with end stage kidney failure where they either need dialysis or transplantation to sustain life. The irony is hardly one third have an access to dialysis/transplantation and of these too around 10 percent can sustain it over long period." Reiterating the theme of the year, "Living well with Kidney Disease", Prof. Manish Rathi said, "Despite this dismal picture patients with kidney failure can live pretty well." To demonstrate this Surekha a doctor by profession a patient who received drug therapy, hemodialysis, chronic ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, a live and then a deceased kidney transplantation shared her journey of 27 years so far. Later Dr. Raja Ram Chandran detailed about the website for Kidney paired donation (KPD) as he shared, "In renal transplant, we intend to have a paramount addition to addressing deficiency of patients with kidney disease finding compatible living donors. On this front, the Department of Nephrology envisages launching the kidney paired donation programme. Paired kidney donation is a process of exchange of recipient/donor pairs who are related but incompatible (blood group being different or HLA incompatible because of antibodies), but the recipient of one pair is compatible with the donor of the other pair. KPD is a distinctive way that transplant centres can support such pairs and increase the donor pool. The Department of Nephrology starts this endeavour by creating a website www.indiakpd.org where such recipient/donor pairs can register. Nearer centres outside Chandigarh can register too and contribute and benefit from the increasing pool of donors. The best part of the website, both patients and nephrologist/ transplant surgeons can register. (editor@dailyworld.in)