Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD), an international programme conducted in collaboration with the US National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute and the World Health Organisation, will be launched in India for the first time to study the prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a major cause of chronic morbidity and mortality. The programme coordinated by the Indian Chest Society and the National College of Chest Physicians India, which will be commenced in the country in November, will also focus on the public awareness and the disease prevention activities when the data collection is complete.

According to Rohini V Chowgule, chairperson, Scientific Committee of the joint initiative, the programme will be commenced at the five-day National Conference on Pulmonary Diseases (Napcon), which is being organized in Mumbai on November 11. In the Conference, about eight hundred physicians from all around the world are expected to participate.

Though COPD has been recognized for many years, hardly any public health officials are concerned about the recent and continuing increases in its prevalence and mortality, which are due in large part of the increasing use of tobacco products worldwide and the changing age structure of population in developing countries. However, the GOLD programme, which is being launched for the first time in India, offers a framework for management of COPD that can be adapted to local health care systems and resources, says Dr Chowgule.

Besides the COPD prevention initiatives, the GOLD activities will also address the vital issues like asthma diagnosis, asthma treatment, tuberculosis and treatment of pediatric pulmonary diseases, sleep disorders, breathing, air pollution and environment, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, and ICS ovation, Dr Chowgule informed.

As far as COPD is concerned, the GOLD's disease prevention activities will attack on smoking as it is the main cause for the disease. The public awareness programme of GOLD, which is also sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies like Glaxo, Cipla, Zydus Cadila etc, in India, would undertake smoking cessation as one of the main agenda.

COPD, according to Dr Chowgule, is a disease state characterised by airflow inflammation that is not fully reversible. "Since the airflow inflammation is usually both progressive and associated with an abnormal inflammatory response of the lungs to noxious particles or gases, the diagnosis should be considered in any individual with symptoms and a history of exposure to risk factors. And it should be confirmed by spirometry, which is not done in many of the cases. So the treatment of the disease is often gets wrongly targeted and the disease is on rise here," she said.

However, since the damaged lung is irreversible when the disease advances, the programme is aimed at educating the general practitioners as well to conduct the diagnosis properly and treat the same in an early stage.