Hello and welcome to EFA’s February eZine! Click on the links below to read our monthly round-up of news, meetings, projects and policy in the world of asthma, allergy and COPD. This month we are updating you on our projects on allergy, COPD and travel with oxygen, developments on dialogue on the EU tobacco products directive proposal and highlighting great news from our members. We hope you enjoy reading this issue and look forward to any of your feedback.

EFA was pleased to organise an event which introduced the discussion on health-based ventilation guidelines in the European Parliament. Hosted by MEP Catherine Stihler, in an event of more than 50 participants, EFA and the other partners of HealthVent project presented its guidelines on better indoor air quality based on health evidence. Read More...

In this section we have provided a round-up of recent news and developments regarding our ongoing projects including the EFA Allergy Awareness Project and outcomes of EFA’s 2012 Helsinki workshop on how to start up a national allergy programme; the EFA COPD project and the EFA Oxygen Harmonisation project.Read More...

EFA has been busy this month in ensuring that the voice of patients with asthma, allergy and COPD is heard by policy-makers involved in several pieces of legislations. Follow the link to find out more information on EFA’s efforts to shape legislation relating to European air quality, environment, tobacco, medical devices and clinical trials. Read More...

In member news this month the Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association has news of efforts underway in Norway to adopt a 10 year national asthma and allergy programme, the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association is award nominee for its new digital allergy tool and Spanish member FENAER reports on the findings of a new book by allergologists in Spain. Read More...

EFA has yet again been busy attending key EU policy related meetingsin February, as well as planning activities for March. We attended two informative hearings on the newly proposed Tobacco Products Directive, an event on how best to increase patient involvement in future pharmaceutical innovation, the second EAACI Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis meeting in Nice and we are looking forward to speaking at an event on personalised medicines in March. Read More...

In January, Dr. Michael Goldman, Executive Director of the Innovation Medicines Initiative (IMI), extended an invitation to Mrs. Breda Flood specifically to provide a patient’s perspective during the workshop event entitled “Applying open innovation to bring personalised medicine to new disease areas” and also present the “patient’s vision” of U-BIOPRED. Read More...