For the third year in a row, the 2022 Union World Conference on Lung Health was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic on 8-11 November 2022 under the theme Combating Pandemics: Today & Tomorrow.

For the second year in a row, the 52nd Union World Conference on Lung Health was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic on 19-22 October 2021 under the theme Lung Health for All: Solutions for a New Era. The Union World Conference is world’s largest gathering of clinicians and public health workers, health program managers, policymakers, researchers and advocates working to end the suffering caused by lung disease, with a focus specifically on the challenges faced by low- and lower-middle income populations.

In the opening press conference of the 52nd Union World Conference on Lung Health (WCOLH), held virtually on 19-22 October 2021, researchers from the University of Cape Town in South Africa announced results from their study of TB positive people carried out in a specially constructed Respiratory Aerosol Sampling Chamber which suggest that coughing, thought previously to be the main means of spreading TB, might not be the primary driver of TB transmission. Instead, tidal, or regular, breathing may be a far more significant contributor to the aerosolization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterial cause of TB.