There is increasing interest in understanding the role of air pollution as one of the greatest threats to human health worldwide. Nine of 10 individuals breathe air with polluted compounds that have a great impact on lung tissue. The nature of the relationship is complex, and new or updated data are... constantly being reported in the literature. The goal of our review was to summarize the most important air pollutants and their impact on the main respiratory diseases (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, lung cancer, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, respiratory infections, bronchiectasis, tuberculosis) to reduce both short- and the long-term exposure consequences. We considered the most important air pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, ozone, particulate matter and biomass smoke, and observed their impact on pulmonary pathologies. We focused on respiratory pathologies, because air pollution potentiates the increase in respiratory diseases, and the evidence that air pollutants have a detrimental effect is growing. It is imperative to constantly improve policy initiatives on air quality in both high- and low-income countries.
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Background: The impacts of air pollutants on health range from short-term health impairments to hospital admissions
and deaths. Climate change is leading to an increase in air pollution.
The Malawian government recently introduced cost-covering consultation fees for self-referral patients in tertiary public hospitals. Previously, patients received medicines free of charge in government-owned health facilities, but must pay elsewhere. Before the government implements a payment policy... in other areas of health care, it is important to investigate the prices, affordability and availability of essential medicines in Malawi.
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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic exacerbated pre-existing inequalities in the treatment and care of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This report examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to NCD medicines, and the policies and strategies implemented by countries and health sys...tems to anticipate and mitigate stresses across NCD medicine supply chains. The full range of upstream and downstream impacts are investigated, including: manufacturing; procurement, importation and last mile delivery; patient-level effects through affordability and availability; and the effects on NCD medicine availability by category of disease. The report culminates in recommended actions and interventions for key stakeholders in the NCD pharmaceutical supply chain, including governments, regulatory authorities, manufacturers and the private sector; as well as directions for future research for improving access and supply chain access resilience.
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Asthma is the most common chronic disease in children, imposing a consistent burden on health system. In recent years, prevalence of asthma symptoms became globally increased in children and adolescents, particularly in Low-Middle Income Countries (LMICs). Host (genetics, atopy) and environmental fa...ctors (microbial exposure, exposure to passive smoking and air pollution), seemed to contribute to this trend. The increased prevalence observed in metropolitan areas with respect to rural ones and, overall, in industrialized countries, highlighted the role of air pollution in asthma inception. Asthma accounts for 1.1% of the overall global estimate of “Disability-adjusted life years” (DALYs)/100,000 for all causes. Mortality in children is low and it decreased across Europe over recent years. Children from LMICs particularly suffer a disproportionately higher burden in terms of morbidity and mortality. Global asthma-related costs are high and are usually are classified into direct, indirect and intangible costs. Direct costs account for 50–80% of the total costs. Asthma is one of the main causes of hospitalization which are particularly common in children aged < 5 years with a prevalence that has been increased during the last two decades, mostly in LMICs. Indirect costs are usually higher than in older patients, including both school and work-related losses. Intangible costs are unquantifiable, since they are related to impairment of quality of life, limitation of physical activities and study performance. The implementation of strategies aimed at early detect asthma thus providing access to the proper treatment has been shown to effectively reduce the burden of the disease.
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Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease (CRD) worldwide and is estimated to affect 262 million causing significant mortality and morbidity, and has emerged as an important public health problem in many Latin American (LA) countries over the last 30 or so years. LA is a highly diverse r...egion in terms of geography, climate, wealth, and ethnicity including 20 different countries with 639 million inhabitants, where 40 million are estimated to have asthma. A common feature of LA countries is the high level of social inequalities3 (Figure 1). In LA, asthma prevalence in both children and adults is highly variable and, where high, is among the highest worldwide, particularly in coastal tropical cities.
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The European Respiratory Society (ERS)/American Thoracic Society (ATS) Task Force on severe asthma includes an updated definition of severe asthma, a discussion of severe asthma phenotypes in relation to genetics, natural history, pathobiology and physiology, as well as sections on evaluation and tr...eatment of severe asthma where specific recommendations for practice are made. See the unabridged online version of the document for detailed discussion of the definition of severe asthma, phenotypes and recommendations for practice.
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Childhood Respiratory Diseases & the Environment learning objectives
•To understand how the respiratory tract is affected by the environment
•To describe respiratory diseases linked to the environment
•To list one population-level intervention and one personal-level intervention for d...ecreasing risk of respiratory diseases
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Asbestos, the most frequent cause of occupational cancer, continues to be consumed ona massive scale, with millions of people exposed on a daily basis. This review explains why we havefailed in curtailing the silent epidemic of asbestos-related disease and why the numbers of asbestosvictims are like...ly to remain high. Emerging and developed countries have to be reminded that asbestosexposure has yet to become a problem of the past. The worldwide spread of asbestos, followed by thesurge of asbestos-related cancers, resembles the lung cancer epidemic caused by smoking andstimulated by manufacturers.
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This document provides a list of key WHO-recommended maternal and newborn health commodities and aims to accelerate progress towards the SDGs. It consolidates the key and enabling commodities from existing WHO guidelines on maternal and newborn health.