6 May 2025
On World Asthma Day 2025 (6 May), the call to action is clear: ‘Make Inhaled Treatments Accessible for ALL’. To highlight the lack of access to inhaled medicines for asthma and COPD in low-resource, high-burden settings, the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) is launching an education campaign ‘Increasing Access to Inhaled Medicines’.
The campaign will engage governments, the United Nations, global health agencies, industry, donors and civil society organisations to take coordinated action to ensure availability of proven, effective treatments. The European Respiratory Society is a founding member of FIRS.
Asthma affects over 260 million people and causes more than 450,000 deaths each year. It is also the commonest chronic disease in children and adolescents, affecting around 15% of young adolescents globally. Most of these deaths are preventable. Inhaled corticosteroid-containing medications are essential for managing asthma and preventing life-threatening attacks. But in many low- and middle-income countries—where 96% of global asthma deaths occur—access to these proven treatments remains dangerously limited.
Frontline healthcare professionals are critical to improving outcomes for people with asthma – we urge doctors and health care professionals to ensure that every individual with asthma receives appropriate, evidence-based treatment. This includes prescribing essential inhaled corticosteroid-containing medication—either alone or in combination with a reliever—to reduce the persistent burden of preventable asthma-related morbidity and mortality.
On World Asthma Day, FIRS and its members call on all sectors to step up efforts to ‘Make Inhaled Treatments Accessible for ALL’.