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The ASTHMA PROBLEM
Asthma: Our children at risk.
There are between 100 and 150 million people in the world who struggle with the
recurrent attacks of breathlessness and wheezing caused by asthma.
What is Asthma ?
Each year about 180,000 people die of the disease. Increasingly, asthma is
exacting a toll on our children. In some populations, 1 in 3 children have been
diagnosed with asthma. In Australia, for example, 14% of children and young
adults under the age of 19 suffer from asthma .
Related conditions, such as food allergy are also a growing concern among
children. While millions of people around the world suffer from food allergies,
the greatest proportion of these are young children. Between 3 -7% of
children have some form of food allergy. Anaphylaxis, the most serious and
potentially fatal type of allergic reaction can often appear without warning.
The Global Prevention of Asthma in Children (GPAC) Study was designed with the
goal of determining whether asthma and allergies can be prevented in children.
It is the result of a collaboration between The US National Institutes of
Health, the Immune Tolerance Network, the Telethon Institute for Child Health
Research and five participating clinical sites: Princess Margaret Hospital for
Children, Perth, Australia; Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia;
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA; Karolinska Institute Allergy
Centre, Stockholm, Sweden; Charité-Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany.
Asthma Information on the Web:
Asthma & Allergy
Foundation of America -
http://www.aafa.org/
Allergy & Asthma
Network: Mothers of Asthmatics -
http://www.aanma.org/
Global Initiative
for Asthma -
http://www.ginasthma.com/
Asthma Foundations
of Australia -
http://www.asthmaaustralia.org.au/
National Asthma
Council of Australia -
http://www.nationalasthma.org.au/
Deutschen Allergie-
und Asthmabund e.V. -
http://www.daab.de
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