World Asthma Day: Know theme, significance, reasons, precautions and more

World Asthma Day is an annual event organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) to create awareness about the precautions and preventions of asthma across the world.

Every year it falls on the first Tuesday of May and is being celebrated in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO). This year it falls on May 1 to mark the 20th Asthma Day.

Significance of the Day:

The inaugural World Asthma Day was held in 1998 to provide a call to action for both patients and healthcare providers worldwide to evaluate symptoms regardless of the time.

2018 World Asthma Day Theme:

The theme of 2018 World Asthma Day is 'Never too early, never too late'. 'It's always the right time to address airways disease'.

Asthma Affected people in India:

In India, around 2 crore people are reported of the disease.

"India has an estimated 1.5-2 crore asthmatics and rough estimates indicate its prevalence between 10 per cent and 15 per cent in 5-11-year-old children," says Dr MK Gupta, senior allergy and asthma specialist at AANCH Hospital.

"At present 25 per cent of the population suffers from the allergy in our country. Five per cent of them are suffering from asthma and even in developed countries like the USA there is 10 per cent increase in Asthma patients every year," he added.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 235 million people currently suffer from asthma across the world. It is a common disease among children.

What is Asthma?

Asthma is a reaction to allergies which can be associated with lungs, nose, throat, and skin, any of these organs could cause Asthma.

Reasons for Asthma:

Although, the surging air pollution across the globe is one of the main reasons behind the disease, the dust in the corners of your house is also a serious reason of concern.

The house dust mite is generally found in the carpet, pillows and mattresses and is very dangerous for both Asthma patients and normal person.

Precautions Asthma patients should take:

Firstly, avoid dust particles in the air for a long time. In order to clean your house, do wet mopping or wet dusting.

-Use leather upholstery and polyester curtain

-Use Inhalers: relievers or preventers

-There are several vaccines for Asthma patients, such as H1N1 influenza vaccine, Pneumonia

-Vaccine for people above the age of 65 and so on

-Avoid going out in peak hours of traffic

-Use a mask while stepping out