Johannesburg – With asthma awareness day this week, Professor Jonny Peter, who heads up the UCT (University of Cape Town) Lung Institute’s allergy and immunology unit, said South Africa may be low in asthma prevalence but ranks fourth in asthma deaths.
The disproportionately high asthma mortalities were largely due to lack of education on the condition. Globally, there are more than 339-million people who suffer from the condition, and according to the Global Initiative for Asthma, a total of 417 918 deaths were reported globally in 2016.
“People are not aware of the need for control, they are not aware of how asthma is treated and diagnosed. Our health system is a problem. During the Covid-19 lockdown, patients didn’t have access to their medications.
“Asthma is a condition that needs chronic daily care with inhalers, you cannot have long periods without your therapy as that would put you at high risk,” Peter said.
“Because our health system is decentralised, the other thing is that people often present late with quite severe asthma exacerbations. You can go for long periods without having any problems and you can have an acute asthma attack and that can be a problem.”
Peter explained that asthma is an allergic disorder that you are not necessarily born with, but you are born with a genetic predisposition to allergic conditions that include asthma, hay fever and eczema.
It’s a reversible constriction of the airways in response to these allergic triggers.
On a positive note, he said that although the medical fraternity initially thought asthma was a major risk factor for Covid-19, it now looks like patients with mild to moderate asthma are not at risk for more severe Covid-19.
“In fact, the inhaled steroid therapy is actually proven to be of benefit if administered in early Covid, can have a beneficial therapeutic effect. Covid-19 is not a trigger for acute asthma exacerbation. We saw the reverse effect last year,” he said.
In contrast, it does appear in severe asthmatics – patients who over a long period of time developed permanent damage to their lungs can be at more risk of getting a severe form of the deadly virus. He mentioned that asthmatic patients will most likely be included in phase two of the vaccine rollout.
Peter said a development with new inhaler therapies sees almost no systematic absorption, the side effects are very low and that these medicines can be used safely life-long without major complications in adults and children. “It’s not an infectious illness either. It’s an inflammatory or allergic illness.”
And the belief that asthmatics can’t exercise is not true. They can compete at the highest level of sport like in the Olympic Games.
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