COPD is a disease killing over 3 million people every year, and the World Health Organization (WHO) says that, today, more than 60 million people around the world have COPD. The WHO also adds that, by 2030, it will become the third leading cause of death, only after heart and cerebrovascular diseases. According to Rittri, people need to be more aware about COPD, as it has the potential to become a global epidemic: COPD is not curable and, while there is not much that regular people can do to improve the air quality outside, they can reduce the risks of getting COPD by improving the quality of indoor air, purifying it from dust, smoke, fumes, sprays and household cleaning products. People often relate the poor air quality with smoking, but cigarettes are far from being the number one cause for that – in fact, it is now recognized that 10-20 percent of COPD patients have never smoked. Also, only a fraction of smokers develop COPD, suggesting that both genetic and environmental factors influence the risk of developing COPD. Stats show that 12 million adults in the US are diagnosed with COPD, and 120,000 die from it each year. An additional 12 million adults are thought to have undiagnosed COPD within the United States. In the Southeast Asia the numbers are far worse, and the COPD incidence in the region is expected to grow 160 percent by 2020, according to the WHO.
