Raising awareness for Asthma

World Asthma Day is an annual event organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) to improve asthma awareness and care around the world. 

This year it is being observed on May 5 and will have the theme “You Can Control Your Asthma.” 

It is celebrated annually on first Tuesday of the month of May.

Various health care professionals, members, educators, and other health care organisations take part in the celebration by showing their activities related to asthma awareness at many public places in order to help people reducing their burden of asthma.

Around 35 % of school-going children in India suffer from poor lung health with Delhi topping the chart, a recently released survey report suggests.

According to nation-wide survey report titled Breathe Blue’15, a worrisome 21 % of the children surveyed in Delhi have been tagged with ‘Poor’ lung capacity in the Lung Health Screening Test (LHST) conducted on them while another 19 % faring as ‘bad’.

Together this segment forms a whopping 40 % of the children surveyed.

This was followed by Bangalore at 36% (14% ‘Poor’ and 22% ‘Bad’), 35% in Kolkata (9% ‘Poor’ and 26% ‘Bad’) and 27% in Mumbai (13% ‘Poor’ and 14% ‘Bad’).

The survey includes 2,000 school students in the age group of 8-14 from all parts of the country.

Globally, asthma is one of the most common lung diseases, and is characterised by the recurrence of symptoms such as wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness and coughing. 

The severity of the disease varies from person to person and while an asthma attack may only cause mild symptoms in one person, it could be deadly in another.

“The evidence is very clear. A patient’s asthma can be well controlled when health care workers follow the treatment guidelines, which are based on the best available evidence,” Dr Michael Pather, with the Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS), said.

To cope up with the disease many steps can be taken with the help of a doctor. A management plan can be tailored to the person with asthma and which covers medications that should be taken at certain times during the day to avoid asthma.

Best way is to educate one about the risk factors of asthma which can bring on symptoms and make the condition worse. One must learn to recognise when the symptoms are becoming worse.

When NewsMobile asked Dr Inder Mohan Chugh, Head of Pulmonology, Max Hospital, New Delhi about the cure of this disease, he said, “Asthma can be controlled but unfortunately there is no definite cure to it. There are so many diseases like diabetes, hypertension, heart, etc. these diseases don’t have any cure but can be controlled, so that people can lead normal life. 

The most effective cure of Asthma is Inhalational therapy, in which you breathe in medicines through your mouth which straight away goes into lungs, they are available in different kinds of medicines like in the form of puffs or inhaler second is dry powder inhaler and third is Nebulization therapy. These drugs can be taken in tablets or syrup forms. They work without any side effects and they go directly into your lungs and works most effectively, he added.

When asked about the main cause behind this drastic growth of asthma patients, Dr Vani Wasir told NewsMobile, “Main cause of rising number of asthma patients is pollution which is affecting both kids and adults. Though efforts can be made to keep kids away from pollen grains in gardens or pets at home, but on a larger part, society has to take steps to reduce pollution to help solve the rising concern of asthma.”