More than a fifth of people in China may have a high risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease based on a national pilot project carried out over the past three years.

More than 1.5 million screenings for the disease have been conducted since the project was launched in November 2017, covering 28 cities in 24 provincial-level regions in China, Yang Ting, a respiratory disease doctor at Beijing's China-Japan Friendship Hospital, which led the project, said at a conference on the diagnosis and treatment of the disease on Wednesday.

Through the project, more than 26,000 people with the disease have received standardized management over the past three years, she said.

Medical professionals also provided more than 1,600 training sessions to respiratory physicians working in grassroots medical institutions and helped improve their ability to provide diagnosis and treatment, she said.

The project will be expanded to cover more cities across China, and more research will be conducted over the next three years, including improving the identification of groups more prone to develop the disease and providing better follow-up services for patients, Yang said.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is one of the most common chronic diseases in China, with about 100 million patients. However, a lack of proper medical equipment and qualified medical workers has hindered prevention and control of the disease at the grassroots level in China, she said.

Major causes of the disease include smoking and air pollution.