FIRS The Global Impact of Respiratory Disease – Second Edition | Page 9

Respiratory diseases make up fi ve of the 30
most common causes of death: COPD is
third; lower respiratory tract infection is fourth;
tracheal, bronchial and lung cancer is sixth;
TB is twelfth; and asthma is twenty-eighth
[1]. Altogether, more than 1 billion people
suffer from either acute or chronic respiratory
conditions. The stark reality is that, each
year, 4 million people die prematurely from
chronic respiratory disease [11]. Infants and
young children are particularly susceptible. A
total of 9 million children under 5 years old
die annually, and pneumonia is the world’s
leading killer of these children [1].
Even more distressing is the enormous
suffering that living with these illnesses cause.
Those who are most disadvantaged suffer most
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from poor health. With this awareness, the
United Nations (UN) created the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) in 2016 [12] to
raise living standards globally. The Forum
of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS)
is part of a global effort to call for action
to address the huge burden of respiratory
diseases. FIRS asserts that alleviating this
burden should be a leading strategy of
the Sustainable Development Goals and a
requirement for nations to achieve these
goals. FIRS has previously published a report
[13] to call for improvements in healthcare
policies, systems and care delivery, as well as
providing direction for future research, and
this report aims to provide an update on what
has happened in the intervening years.
Forum of International Respiratory Societies