CREST, a Pune-based institute dedicated for research and education in the field of chronic lung diseases, found in its  recent nationwide screening program for COPD that  almost 33 percent of the COPD patients in India were non-smokers. The study gains significance as COPD is a disease known to be predominantly caused by smoking.   

In the weeklong survey, the CREST team also observed that the causes for developing COPDs could range from tobacco smoking in any form, household air pollution from the burning of biomass fuels for cooking purposes, burning of mosquito coils, long-term exposure to ambient air pollution from motor vehicular exhausts, industry smoke to road dust. 

The team suggested that simple, easy-to-use, cheap, and accurate spirometers should be made available in more numbers across the country to reduce the number and severity of COPD patients.