Key updates from the IRC autumn quarterly meeting

4 November 2026

The International Respiratory Coalition (IRC) held its autumn quarterly meeting on 27 October, bringing together national coalition partners from across the network for updates, discussion and planning under the theme, ‘collective action to transform respiratory care.’

WHO–IRC workshop on chronic respiratory diseases

A major highlight is the upcoming WHO–IRC Workshop on chronic Respiratory Diseases, scheduled for 24–25 November 2026 in Budapest.

Fourteen coalitions – including Armenia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Ukraine – will participate to advance structured self-assessments and develop concrete follow-up actions. Each participating country is expected to leave the workshop with drafts of its national CRD situation analysis, a priority action list, and an early outline of a national CRD roadmap.

This joint initiative advances IRC’s efforts to support national coalitions in developing funded national respiratory health plans that address prevention, treatment and care, to support our mission of reducing respiratory disease-related mortality by a third globally by 2030 in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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Lung Facts 2026: exploring the burden and cost of respiratory disease in Europe

A team from the University Medical Center Groningen presented the Lung Facts 2026 update, which draws on the Global Burden of Disease 2023 study and includes data covering 21 countries in the WHO European Region and 14 respiratory diseases.

Key findings include:

• Prevalence: approximately 145.8 million cases of respiratory disease
• Mortality: 1,284,969 deaths
• Societal cost: an estimated €794.6 billion (monetised DALYs)

Lung Facts provides national coalitions of health professionals, patient advocates and policymakers with a single, accessible source of epidemiological and economic data to demonstrate the scale of respiratory disease, identify priorities, and help make the case for policy action.

The platform will be expanded to include two additional countries, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which are the latest countries to join the IRC’s international network.