Practical Approach to Lung Health (PAL)
Why is PAL useful?
- Up to one-third of patients over the age of 5 years attending primary health care (PHC) settings seek health care for respiratory symptoms.
- Ideally, TB cases should be detected among patients with respiratory symptoms within PHC settings.
- In many countries, standardized procedures have been clearly defined for the management of TB and acute respiratory infections (ARI) in children, but no such formulations exist for patients over 5 years of age with respiratory symptoms.
- In PHC facilities, the majority of patients with respiratory symptoms aged 5 years or more are identified as non-TB cases, and at least 80% of them are considered to be ARI cases.
- Antibiotics are prescribed for more than two-thirds of patients with respiratory symptoms.