About 1.28 million people in China die from Chronic Obstructive
Pulmonary Disease (COPD) annually, experts at an international
symposium in Beijing reported this weekend.
There were 38.16 million patients in China's mainland and
870,000 in Hong Kong and Taiwan affected with medium or severe
COPD. However, public awareness of the disease was quite low.
Even doctors could misdiagnose, and fail to spot the disease at
an early stage, according to an international research project on
antibiotics, which held a global symposium on bronchitis in Asia
Pacific in the Chinese capital this week.
Cough, expectoration and panting were listed as major symptoms
of COPD, a general term covering chronic bronchitis, emphysema and
some other chronic lung diseases.
The antibiotic Moxifloxac can help cut the number of days COPD
patients suffer from the symptoms by 20 percent and reduce the
nights of sleep disorder by 18 percent, according to results of a
survey conducted by the transnational project. It studied more than
47,000 patients including 28,000 from Asia Pacific, about half of
which were from the Chinese mainland.
The survey, which started in 2004, also found the average age
for Asia-Pacific patients was 57, slightly younger than that of
Europe and Latin America.
Experts said reducing acute outbreak and swiftly controlling
infection were key measures to dealing with COPD.
(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2007)