The Year of the Lung kicks off in Mexico

The campaign aims to raise awareness about the importance of lung health, generate social and political support for preventing and treating lung disease, and increase public and private funding for lung research.

It represents a global effort to unite health advocates in the field in developing new prevention strategies and treatments with the ultimate purpose of impacting positively on the lives of the hundreds of millions of people who suffer from lung disease.

More than 2,000 delegates from over 160 countries convened at the Union World Conference on Lung Health to acknowledge the threat that lung disease presents to society and its impact on socio-economic development, particularly in poor countries

Despite the huge importance of respiratory health, a common lung health strategy has long been missing from the global political and social agenda.

The Year of the Lung will be an intensive global 12-month campaign to correct this omission, lead by seven major respiratory societies. Its aim is to drive legislative, political and public opinion towards measurable improvements in funding, research and development, basic lung health screening, smoking cessation and public education about lung function and care.

“Launching the 2010: The Year of the Lung campaign at this particular moment, with TB cases continuing to rise, the ongoing threat of the H1N1 pandemic and increasing fatalities due to pneumonia in children not only enhances the incredible work already being done to address the important issues of lung health, but also mobilises new forces within the global health community and beyond,” says ERS president Prof. Nikolaos M. Siafakas, Department of Thoracic Medicine, Medical School, University of Crete, Greece.”