Asthma in the context of global alliance against respiratory diseases (GARD) in Turkey

The Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory Diseases (GARD) is a voluntary alliance that is assisting World Health Organization (WHO) in the task of addressing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at country level. The GARD approach was initiated in 2006 (1,2). GARD Turkey is the first comprehensive program developed by a government with all stakeholders of the country. GARD Turkey Project is the National Control Program of Turkish Ministry of Health on chronic airway disease (asthma and COPD) (3,4). This paper describes the segment of the program on asthma.