Newsletter December 2025

Dear Global Asthma Network collaborators, colleagues and friends

Welcome to the year-end Global Asthma Network newsletter. This year has been a successful year for GAN and we appreciate the continuous support from our members and research partners. The Global Asthma Report 2025: Patient Stories (GAR 2025) was published on the 6 of May 2025 (World Asthma Day) and has received positive feedback from the asthma community. Several organisations facilitated the dissemination of the GAR 2025. The World Health Organization (WHO) promoted the GAR 2025 in their World Asthma Day (WAD) departmental news article published on the WHO website. The Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) included the GAR 2025 in their WAD media statement for their Increasing Access to Inhaled Medicine for Asthma and COPD Campaign. The Global Allergy & Airways Patient Platform (GAAPP), who contributed to the GAR 2025, circulated copies at the World Health Assembly and UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting. The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) presented the GAR 2025 at their GINA Advocates meeting on WAD. The Pan African Thoracic Society (PATS) circulated the GAR 2025 on their website for WAD. At the time of sending this newsletter, the GAR 2025 had 8032 views. The GAR 2025 has published 64 patient stories with particularly strong representation from the African region and the Americas. In the interest of continued network engagement and further developing the GAR 2025 as a living document, GAN would like to invite collaborators to submit additional patient stories.

If you are interested in submitting a patient story, please email the GAN administrator and instructions will be sent to you. We are also excited to announce GAN’s upcoming project, the Global Asthma Report 2026: Country Stories. This project aims to develop detailed profiles of countries across all six WHO regions, covering high-, middle-, and low-income settings. The profiles will highlight the unique challenges and experiences related to the burden, diagnosis and management of asthma in each country. The publication will build on the Global Asthma Report 2025: Patient Stories and will be published similarly as a living digital document. To date, 39 countries have indicated interest in writing the country stories so far. The Global Asthma Report 2026: Country Stories will be published in time for the World Asthma Day 2026.

The GAN SG has completed a five year strategic planning exercise informing our activities over the next 5 years. We plan to have activities on a yearly basis, so please stay tuned as these will be shared in our newsletters and our regular updates.

GAN remains committed to addressing the burden of asthma and we hope to continue collaborating with our members and research partners throughout this five year period leading to the UN SDG 2030. The GAN Steering Group wishes you and your loved ones Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays!

Refiloe and Kevin
GAN co-chairs