FIRS The Global Impact of Respiratory Disease – Second Edition | Page 6

Foreword
The World Health Organization (WHO) launched
the Global Alliance Against Respiratory Diseases
(GARD) in 2006 with the aim to bring together the
combined knowledge of national and international
organisations, institutions and agencies to improve
the lives of more than one billion people affected
by chronic and acute respiratory diseases.
The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda was
adopted by world leaders in 2015 at a historic
UN Summit in New York and came into force on
January 1, 2016. The very ambitious agenda
is a plan of action to achieve 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets by
the year 2030, which include the economic, social
and environmental dimensions of sustainable
development.
SDG goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote
well-being for all at all ages is one of the most
important goals and needs to receive special
attention by governments and all stakeholders.
Improved health will bring people out of poverty
and contribute substantially to sustainable
development. A lot of progress has been made in
increasing life expectancy and reducing the burden
of many diseases such as polio, maternal mortality
and the spread of HIV/AIDS. However, many
challenges remain to be addressed if countries are
to achieve SDG 3.
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including
cardiovascular
diseases,
cancers,
chronic
respiratory diseases and diabetes, are the biggest
killers today. One of the very ambitious goals is to
reduce mortality from NCDs by 30% by the year
2030. The WHO Global Action Plan on NCDs has
recognised the strong interaction between NCDs
and infectious diseases, including tuberculosis in
particular in low- and middle-income countries and
is asking to explore opportunities to improve the
detection and treatment of co-morbidities within
health services.
This Forum of International Respiratory Societies
(FIRS) report highlights these comorbiditie