World Asthma Day sheds light on management, prevention initiatives

To celebrate World Asthma Day, the Global Initiative for Asthma has announced that today it will release a revision of its Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention for the first time in 8 years, according to a press release. The report will be available to health care professionals worldwide.

The theme of World Asthma Day is ‘You Can Control Your Asthma,’ according to the release.

Helen Reddel

“The new report reflects the latest science concerning the nature of asthma, an expanding interest in individualized health care, and greater awareness of the need for clinical recommendations to be feasible for implementation in clinical practice,” Helen Reddel, MD, PhD, clinical associate professor at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, and chair of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) science committee, said in a press release. “This is a real time of transition in our understanding of chronic airways disease and how to manage it to improve outcomes for the patient.”

“As the prevalence of asthma increases in many countries around the globe, we need a practical strategy for translating scientific knowledge into improvements in patient care,” Mark FitzGerald, MD, professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and chair of the GINA board of directors, said in the release. “That strategy is what GINA aims to provide.”

Mark FitzGerald

Researchers have included a chapter on the management of asthma in children aged 5 years and younger; a new chapter on the diagnosis of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma-COPD overlap syndrome, according to the report.

“It has become clear in recent years that asthma control really has two components,” Reddel said in the release. “Symptom control is crucial to reduce the burden of asthma in patients’ daily lives. But health care workers also must evaluate and minimize any risks that individual patients may have for poor outcomes like severe asthma flare-ups, side effects from treatment, or permanent airway damage.”