Stop TB Partnership

World Conference on Lung Health in Kuala Lumpur focusses on sustainability

17 November 2012 - Kuala Lumpur - More than 2 600 delegates from 122 countries joined the 43rd Union World Conference on Lung Health, which focused on the theme of Driving Sustainability through Mutual Responsibility, from 13-17 November 2012.

In her welcome address at the Inaugural Session on Wednesday, 14 November, Union President E Jane Carter described the theme as fitting not only to describe the goal for global health programmes, but also as a description of The Union itself and how its members support and sustain each other.

Datuk Dr Lokman Sulaiman Bin Hakim, Deputy Director General Ministry of Health Malaysia, welcomed the delegates to his country; and Prof Lee Reichman gave the Sir John Crofton Memorial Lecture entitled "Timebomb Revisited Ten Years Later: Can we sustain progress or are we losing the war?", focusing on the ever-looming threat of drug resistance

Presenters from 65 countries offered more than 150 postgraduate courses and workshops, symposia, plenary sessions, abstract-driven and poster-related sessions, meet-the-experts and a late-breaker session on TB research during the scientific sessions at the conference.

Plenary lectures were given by Professor Guy Marks on "The Global Burden of Respiratory Disease"; Dr Sheila Tlou on "Preparing the Workforce for the Responsible Rollout of New Tools"; and Dr Anneke Hesseling on "Childhood TB: We need to do more".

At a press conference on Operational Research: Local Solutions, Global Impact, The Union and Médécins Sans Frontières presented their innovative approach to building capacity and finding health solutions for the poor through operational research and launched their new publication making the case for supporting operational research programmes.

Run for your lungs, sponsored by the Malaysian Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis and The Union, was 1.5 km family fun run in the KLCC Park. More than 200 local children, families and conference delegates put on their running shoes to help build awareness of lung health.

Web casts of most conference sessions, including audio and presentations, are available at http://uwclh.conference2web.com/content/all

Daily videos and slide shows may be found at www.worldlunghealth.org or www.theunion.org