Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters,

It was 10 years ago when the first World PH Day (WPHD) was celebrated in Madrid, Spain in a format of a scientific symposium: key opinion leaders from the medical field and patient representatives attended that prestigious event.

A decade is a long time in a life of a series of events: World PH Day has also gone through many changes since the beginning, but we can proudly announce it becomes truly a global event. More than 80 associations worldwide celebrate WPHD on the 5th of May in various formats, but with the same message: Get breathless for PH!

In the first years World PH Day became an awareness raising event: many associations from Europe united under the same lung logo and message. More and more countries joined later on when they saw the success of the initiative.

A very fruitful collaboration with the leading global triathlon and running event organizer, Ironman gave further momentum and recognition to WPHD: triathletes all over the world proudly wear the branded suits and rang the bell during the races to attract the attention to pulmonary hypertension (PH). Many ambassadors from various sports still collect the miles, raise awareness of PH and get breathless in high mountains, long runs and swims, during kayaking and biking and many other ways.

The variety of events has also evolved: the raising awareness events have not only targeted the general public, but schools to facilitate the better acceptance of kids and youngsters living with this condition. Trainings and webinars, meetings with stakeholders, involvement of celebrities and decision-makers, negotiations with politicians, various exhibitions, organization of charity events nicely supplemented the main events and contributed to keeping pulmonary hypertension on the agenda. The PH community nicely adapted the WPHD celebrations to the COVID era as well: however mass events were canceled, millions of people were reached through social media campaigns, webinars in different languages, online petitions and online events with the involvement of members of the European Parliament (MEP) on accelerating EU research – the case of pulmonary hypertension.

The 10th anniversary of World PH Day was remarkable – both on a country and European level – with the motto of #TogetherStronger.

Many countries from Spain and Hungary to Bulgaria, from Slovakia and Czech Republic to Bosnia and Hercegovina illuminated their famous buildings on the evening of the 5th of May in the colors either blue or purple to mark this special day.

Sport events were very popular in Israel, Belarus, Serbia and in North Macedonia to mention a few.
Portugal and Italy organized – among others – a scientific meeting and Italy as well as Austria ran a charity concert with big success. You can learn more about the activities conducted by the member associations in the following pages of this edition of Mariposa.

The journal is available from here: PHAE – Mariposa Journal (2022 Summer N.28)

Gergely Meszaros
Project manager
PHA Europe

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