“Each death from asthma is a preventable death”: Portugal has a “very low mortality rate from the disease – Sociedade
Asthma kills. Portugal has a “very low mortality rate, compared to the best in Europe”, and between 2005 and 2015, the average was five deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. “It’s good, but it could be better, because every death from asthma is a preventable death”, says Lídia Fernandes, coordinator of the Respiratory Allergology Working Committee of the Portuguese Society of Pulmonology.
There are 700,000 asthmatics in the country, and not all asthmatics are born with a disease, which also manifests itself in adulthood. About “in professions where workers are subject to the ability of sensitivity products”.
Other chronic cases into account is that this disease has different degrees of severity: there are severe and mild cases. Today, on World Asthma Day – an event celebrated in more than 35 countries, every year since 1998 (on the first Tuesday of May), a pulmonologist guarantees that the most important factor to retain is knowledge.
“You have to know the disease and be aware,” he says. “Our majority of the population is very normal, finding themselves very persistent, habitual to them and normal. But it’s not normal”, she warns.
According to data from the Directorate-General for Health, only half of asthmatics have the disease under control and Lídia Fernandes says that is where she should act. “We need to know what we have, that there is an answer for all spectrums of the disease. Know that there is a solution and that we should not accept a limitation”, she defends.
KNOW MORE
150 million people around the world are nationals due to this disease, which affects 7% of the Portuguese (700 thousand). It is a disease that has greater difficulty in pediatric age.
Chronic disease
Asthma is an inflamed disease of the airways, a disease of inflammation of the airways, which causes an illness to the discomfort of a difficulty breathing.
treatments
Asthma has no cure, but it is possible to control the frequency and intensity of symptoms. Treatment is with bronchodilators, but also anti-inflammatory drugs, such as corticosteroids.