Friday, July 29, 2011

Indo-US Joint Centre To Research Link Between IAP And COPD


Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD) is a major public health problem affecting millions of people in both developed and developing countries. There is no effective treatment for COPD, which is characterised by chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

Whilst many millions of people in the developed world suffer from COPD, the problem is particularly severe in rural communities in the developing world. As a report on Healthcanal.com explains, high incidences of environmental lung disease are being caused primarily by indoor cooking using biomass and other solid fuels.

A recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) breaks down the causes of COPD further.

“COPD has opposite patterns according to geographic areas. In high- and middle-income countries, tobacco smoke is the biggest risk factor, while in low-income countries exposure to indoor air pollution, such as the use of biomass fuels for cooking and heating, causes the COPD burden. Almost 3 billion people worldwide use biomass and coal as their main source of energy for cooking, heating, and other household needs. In these communities, indoor air pollution is responsible for a greater fraction of COPD risk than smoking or outdoor air pollution.Biomass fuels used by women for cooking account for the high prevalence of COPD among non-smoking women in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Indoor air pollution resulting from the burning of wood and other biomass fuels is estimated to kill two million women and children each year.”

Despite research by the WHO into COPD occurrence in non-smokers, the pathobiology and a definitive link between indoor air pollution (caused by burning  solid fuels and cooking over traditional stoves) and the disease is still unclear.

To address this issue, the Indo-US Science & Technology Forum (IUSSTF) has awarded funding to The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to establish the first centre to study COPD and other lung diseases in non-smokers living in rural India.

The centre, to be called the Indo-US Center of Excellence for Environmental Lung Diseases, will be led jointly by Shyam Biswal, Professor at the Bloomberg School’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Sundeep Salvi, Director of India’s Chest Research Foundation at Pune and Anurag Agrawal, MD of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in Delhi.

Speaking to Healthcanal.com, Biswal said “We are beginning to appreciate the global problem of non-smoker COPD but our understanding of pathobiology is unclear. This Centre will attempt to bring together experts from both countries to face this public health challenge”.

The Indian investigators will share data with their US counterparts on a number of factors influencing levels of IAP. These include firewood consumption in rural homes, duration of time spent cooking, level of exposure to toxic fumes and gene-environment interaction. Such information will provide a clearer understanding of susceptibility to the disease, leading to the development of new treatments for the affected population.