Mortimer Kevin, Cuevas Luis, Squire Bertie, Thomson Rachael, Tolhurst Rachel
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK.
BMC Proc. 2015 Dec 18;9(Suppl 10):S3. doi: 10.1186/1753-6561-9-S10-S3. eCollection 2015.
Chronic respiratory symptoms are amongst the most common complaints among low and middle-income country (LMICs) populations and they are expected to remain common over the 10 to 20 year horizon. The underlying diseases (predominantly chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma and tuberculosis) cause, and threaten to increasingly cause, substantial morbidity and mortality. Effective treatment is available for these conditions but LMICs health systems are not well set up to provide accessible clinical diagnostic pathways that lead to sustainable and affordable management plans especially for the chronic non communicable respiratory diseases. There is a need for clinical and academic capacity building together with well-conducted health systems research to underpin health service strengthening, policy and decision-making. There is an opportunity to integrate solutions for improving access to effective care for people with chronic respiratory symptoms with approaches to tackle other major population health issues that depend on well-functioning health services such as chronic communicable (e.g. HIV) and non-communicable (e.g. cardiovascular and metabolic) diseases.
慢性呼吸道症状是低收入和中等收入国家（LMICs）人群中最常见的疾病主诉之一，预计在未来10至20年内仍将普遍存在。这些潜在疾病（主要是慢性阻塞性肺疾病、哮喘和结核病）已经并将越来越多地导致大量发病和死亡。针对这些疾病有有效的治疗方法，但低收入和中等收入国家的卫生系统没有很好地建立起来，无法提供可及的临床诊断途径，从而制定可持续且负担得起的管理计划，尤其是针对慢性非传染性呼吸道疾病。需要进行临床和学术能力建设，并开展良好的卫生系统研究，以加强卫生服务、政策制定和决策。有机会将改善慢性呼吸道症状患者获得有效治疗的解决方案，与解决其他主要人群健康问题的方法相结合，这些问题依赖于运转良好的卫生服务，如慢性传染病（如艾滋病毒）和非传染性疾病（如心血管疾病和代谢性疾病）。
