NEW YORK and MEXICO CITY — “We must say it clearly: Chronic respiratory diseases have been the invisible giant of global health,” said Jose Luis Castro, the World Health Organization special envoy for chronic respiratory diseases, before a packed room at the United Nations in September.
Castro was addressing the U.N. General Assembly’s first-ever side event dedicated to chronic respiratory illnesses, part of a campaign to raise awareness about the issue. Though many people have never heard of it, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD, is the world’s fourth-leading cause of death, killing 3.5 million people—roughly 5 percent of all global deaths—in 2021.Its fatality rate is equivalent to “a jumbo jet going down every hour,” Tonya Winders, CEO of the Global Allergy & Airways Patient Platform, said at the U.N. event. Around the world, COPD cases are projected to rise 23 percent by 2050.
Today, on World COPD Day, medical professionals around the world are holding free lung health screenings in clinics, community centers and factories.This year’s theme, “Short of breath, think COPD,” underscores breathlessness as a warning sign. David Halpin, a pulmonologist and board member of the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, which organizes World COPD Day,notes that while breathlessness can accompany healthy activity, abnormal breathlessness is a warning sign.Too often, he says, symptoms are normalized as part of the aging process. He hopes World COPD Day will help “overcome the sense that it’s normal.”
