Day: September 25, 2022

MDI without spacer

• Remove the cap and shake the inhaler.
• Take a deep breath and breathe out (exhale) all the way.
• Place the inhaler in your mouth. Close your lips around it.
• As you breathe in deeply, press down on the inhaler to release the medicine. Hold your breath for a count of 10, or as long as you can comfortably. Then slowly breathe out.

MDI with spacer

• Remove the caps from the inhaler and spacer and shake the inhaler.
• Take a deep breath and breathe out (exhale) all the way. Put the spacer between your teeth and close your lips tightly around the spacer.
• Spray 1 puff into the spacer by pressing down on the inhaler. Then slowly breathe in as deeply as you can. If you breathe in too quickly, you may hear a whistling sound in the spacer.
• Take the spacer out of your mouth. Hold your breath for a count of 10, or as long as you can comfortably. Then slowly breathe out.

On World Lung Day, 25 September 2022, the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), of which GOLD is a founding member, calls on governments worldwide to address stark global inequalities in respiratory health.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have subsided, but its impact highlights a global lung health crisis that has not gone away.

Respiratory illnesses affect people in all countries, but disproportionally in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where resources for research, prevention, and management are scarce. To address such inequity, we must look beyond medical care to the social and environmental determinants of health such as tobacco use, air pollution, climate change and poverty.

Five respiratory diseases are the commonest causes of illness and death worldwide – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, acute respiratory tract infection or pneumonia, tuberculosis (TB) and lung cancer.