World Asthma Day brings a warning from doctors

Many of the over 2 million asthmatics in Taiwan receive insufficient quantities of medication or are misdiagnosed due to the complexity of the disease and misconceptions among the general public, doctors warned yesterday on the eve of World Asthma Day.

To publicize World Asthma Day, the Department of Health (衛生署) held a press conference yesterday at which senior doctors introduced the department's Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention, as well as a manual for treating asthma patients -- and to discuss a recent study of the prevalence of childhood asthma in Taipei.

Kuo Shou-hsiung (郭壽雄), a doctor at National Taiwan University Hospital and member of the Taiwan Society of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, said that interviews he had conducted with 400 asthmatics showed that over 80 percent of them did not know what asthma is.

Asthma is chronic bronchial inflammation.

Kuo's study also showed that nearly 50 percent of patients are denied the appropriate medication -- either due to the complexity of the illness, which often leads doctors to misdiagnose asthma as flu, or to the patient's misconceptions about steroids.

"Most people are afraid of steroids because of their misconceptions about their side-effects, but steroids work very effectively in combating asthma and they have few -- and in any case only minor -- side effects" said Kuo.

Chao Kun-Yu (趙坤郁), secretary-general of he health department's Bureau of Health Promotion, said that the Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention was produced to guide doctors in the treatment of asthmatics so that patients would receive better treatment, adding that hospitals that follow the manual will be eligible for subsidies for treatment from the National Health Insurance.

Doctor Huang Jing-long (黃璟隆), director of the department of internal medicine at Chang Gung Children's Hospital, told the Taipei Times that air pollution is not always to blame for triggering asthma.

"Asthma is more prevalent in highly developed countries because many aspects of modern lifestyles, such as housing and diet, are responsible for triggering the disease, " Huang said.

Asthma is caused by genetic and environmental factors. Children of parents with allergenic genes are particularly prone to asthma triggered by environmental factors -- such as the bacteria that cause flu, cigarette smoke and dust mites.