Global partnerships for lung health

Globalization highlights the need for partnerships that build strong health systems around the world. Being keenly aware that health issues in one region, if left unchecked, could spiral to pandemic proportions makes it even more imperative to build partnerships at this time.

The newly established partnership between the British Thoracic Society (BTS) and the Pan African Thoracic Society (PATS) is an example of a global partnership with strong potentials for the promotion of global lung health. As described in the commentary by Walker et al. in this issue of Journal of the Pan African Thoracic Society (JPATS), the desire by BTS members to do more for global lung health was partly born out of the recognition that global health is everyone’s business.^[1]

The partnership between BTS and PATS has multiple layers and dimensions as described by Walker et al.,^[1] and some aspects are already evident. The BTS support for the JPATS in its early years provides us the much needed leverage for sustainability. With this third issue of JPATS, it is obvious that the journal is meeting its commitment as a platform for the publication of globally relevant research from African and non-African authors. So far, we have published manuscripts from researchers based in 20 countries and had 1700 readers for the most read article. Noteworthy is that we have published important papers from our students who attended the American Thoracic Society (ATS)-PATS MECOR research program, thus, meeting a core objective of providing a global stage for early career researchers. For example, in this issue, we have two papers published from students’ protocols developed during the PATS MECOR courses. The paper by Osman et al. describes the poor level of asthma control at three tertiary hospitals in Sudan and also identified potential areas for intervention based on the factors associated with asthma control.^[2] The paper by Ouédraogo et al. surveyed the knowledge of bronchiectasis and management practices among doctors from four Africa countries.^[3] In addition to unveiling the need for context specific local guidelines for bronchiectasis, this collaborative effort developed a screening tool used for the assessment of bronchiectasis knowledge and practice that could be validated in subsequent studies. Another PATS MECOR student paper by Huluka et al. demonstrates the potential benefits of awake prone ventilation in the management of COVID-19 as a cost-effective intervention that could improve outcome in low-resource settings.^[4]

Further, this current JPATS issue includes another important output of the PATS-BTS partnership. The review by Mortimer et al. on “Africa’s respiratory big five” is a fallout of the well-attended (nearly 300 attendees) and hugely successful BTS-PATS joint symposium held at the BTS February 2021 winter meeting.^[5] The paper distills the key points from that symposium and showcases some successes from the PATS MECOR program. It went further to highlight how PATS and the PATS MECOR program, together with our partners, are well positioned to meet some of the research and advocacy needs for these lung health challenges facing Africa. The large attendance at that joint symposium buttresses the interest in global lung health among the membership of BTS and PATS, and I am confident that as we peel off the layers on this partnership, other areas of mutual benefit are likely to unfold.