CF GLOBAL CARE: Collaboration Between Two CF Centers; University of
Michigan, USA and Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey before and during
the COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract
Solving the world’s health challenges requires multidisciplinary
collaborations that bring together the talents, experiences, resources,
and ideas from multiple sectors in low and middle-income countries
(LMIC) and high -income countries (HIC). Cystic Fibrosis (CF) was
thought to be a disease of Caucasian populations from European decent.
However, it has been shown to affect people from all ethnic backgrounds.
CF care varies significantly for people with CF (pw CF) from HIC with
median survival approaching 50 years of age, to LMIC with pw CF dying in
infancy or early childhood. To address the discrepancy in quality of
care and outcomes, we report on a collaboration between our team at the
University of Michigan cystic fibrosis center (UoM CFC), through support
from the Middle East CF Association (MECFA) and the CF Foundation (CFF),
and a CF center in Turkey (Marmara University CF Center, Istanbul) to
address deficiencies and improve quality of care in that center. The
collaboration has been successful in improving Ma CFC data and patient
care. This partnership can be viewed as a model of collaboration to be
duplicated in other Middle East Countries and LMIC to deliver optimal CF
care.