WHO Report on Chronic Respiratory Diseases: Chronic Respiratory Diseases Cost India INT$ 418 billion by 2050
SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
Institutions: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
The WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia released its report Chronic Respiratory Diseases in WHO South-East Asia: Burden, risk factors and services for prevention and management in 2025. The report highlights that chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) account for nearly 12% of all deaths in the Region, with 1.56 million deaths in 2021, of which 37% were premature.
India bears the heaviest burden, with 66.7 million CRD cases, including 35.8 million COPD patients and 32 million asthma patients. CRDs caused 1.25 million deaths in India in 2021, disproportionately affecting women due to household air pollution from biomass fuels.
In India, people are losing huge chunks of healthy life because of chronic respiratory diseases. The report shows that for every 100,000 people, about 1,700 healthy years are lost to COPD and another 427 years to asthma. These “disability-adjusted life years” (DALYs) combine years lost due to early deaths and years lived with illness, showing how much these diseases cut into people’s lives and productivity. Economic losses due to COPD alone are projected at INT$ 418 billion between 2020–2050, reflecting treatment costs, productivity losses, and out-of-pocket spending. INT$ refers to international dollars, a purchasing power parity measure used to make costs comparable across countries.
Key risk factors remain severe ambient air pollution, with PM2.5 levels nearly ninefold above WHO thresholds, and tobacco use (7% prevalence, with men disproportionately affected).
The report provides robust evidence for integrating CRD prevention and management into India’s universal health coverage agenda. It highlights the urgency of multisectoral action across health, environment, and energy policies-strengthening tobacco control, scaling up clean cooking energy under schemes like PMUY, and ensuring primary care access to diagnostics and essential inhaled medicines.
Follow the full report here: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/382848/9789290221494-eng.pdf?sequence=1