19 March 2026
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published the report of the 18th annual meeting of the Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory Diseases (GARD). It captures a year of real progress for lung health, but also reveals how far there is to go before that progress reaches patients and the public.
What changed in 2025
In May, the World Health Assembly passed its first-ever resolution on lung health. Titled “Promoting and prioritising an integrated lung health approach”, it was proposed by Malaysia and backed by several other countries. It covers the full picture: air pollution, tobacco, vaping, workplace exposures, asthma, COPD, lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, and infectious diseases like flu, pneumonia and tuberculosis. WHO must report back on progress by 2027.
Then, in September, the UN High-Level Meeting on noncommunicable diseases produced a political declaration that explicitly names asthma and COPD for the first time. That matters because it gives countries a clear mandate to act, and gives advocates a document they can point to when talking to governments.
For a disease area that has long been overlooked next to cancer and heart disease, being named in UN-level declarations is a turning point. Organisations like the European Respiratory Society have been critical in helping bring these resolutions to fruition.
Challenges for 2026
According to the report, Professor David Halpin highlights a lack of awareness among those who control health budgets and write national health plans. Prof. Halpin shared that fewer than 10% of policymakers at UN side events recognised COPD as the third leading cause of death globally.
The report also highlights equity problems. Research across 60 low- and middle-income countries found major gaps in access to standard inhaled asthma and COPD medicines. Treatments that are routine in wealthier countries are often unavailable or unaffordable where the need is greatest.
These gaps – between what the evidence says and what policymakers know, as well as geographic inequities – remain a key challenge for the international respiratory community in 2026.
A moment to seize
Despite the challenges, the advancements of 2025 signal that respiratory health is becoming a genuine priority on the global health agenda. With the WHO due to report on the lung health resolution in 2027, there is a narrow but important window for action.
“The progress made in 2025 gives us a real opportunity, but we must keep up the momentum to make sure these commitments lead to real change for patients. This is exactly the work the IRC and its growing network of national coalitions are doing – equipping policy makers with the data, straightforward policy examples and expertise they need to develop and implement national respiratory health programmes.”
— Professor Anita Simonds, Chair of the International Respiratory Coalition (IRC)
That work is already underway. In France, the IRC-supported national coalition Collectif Droit à Respirer has built a Respiratory Health Observatory that publicly tracks and rates government action on respiratory health each year. The coalition is now developing a 17-measure National Respiratory Health Plan for 2026 to 2030 and is working to position respiratory health as a priority.
In Belgium, the coalition founded in 2024 with IRC seed funding has built visibility through events including a World COPD Day session at the Chamber of Representatives. The team is now developing a national chronic respiratory diseases plan with a timeline extending to 2035.
These are the kinds of concrete, country-level actions that turn global commitments into more robust disease prevention and control measures and better patient care. Learn more about the national coalitions supported by the IRC.
Job number: Z4-81820 | Date of Prep: March 2026