May 2010 World Asthma Day Special Issue

Today is World Asthma Day: All severe asthma is not the same!

May the 4th is World Asthma Day (WAD), an international annual event to raise awareness on asthma and encourage better care for this people with asthma. Severe Asthma is particularly serious concern: One person dies of severe asthma every6 hours in Europe. In order to inform patients, the public and healthcare professionals on severe asthma and research progress, the U-BIOPRED consortium is launching its website today! EFA is a proud partner of the U-BIOPRED.

Too few therapies are successfully developed for severe asthma and the U-BIOPRED project aims at fostering the development of targeted therapies by proving that no one is average.Our view on asthma is toosimplistic. If a therapy does not work on the average patients, but does benefit to some patients what should we do? Ignore it, and settle for the old treatment?

No! Is the answer you will get from the U-BIOPRED consortium participants, working on this unparalleled project: never before have most of the major pharmaceutical companies with an interest in asthma worked together, and so closely with research and patients’ organisations. New techniques and modeling are used extensively, in the hope of identifying which types of patients might do better with new therapies.  The better we predict the quicker new treatments can be developed. The effort is to create a handprint that contain patient reported data, clinical measurements, data from laboratory experiments, and thousands of measurements of compounds in the blood sputum, and breath of patients with severe asthma.

At the end the hope is to have a new definition of severe asthma, and a new way of working together on improving the lives of people  with asthma, acknowledging that asthma is not a single disease, but vary from one patient to another.

Source: U-BIOPRED press release.
Link to U-BIOPRED website: http://www.ubiopred.european-lung-foundation.org/
World Asthma Day Website: see the activities on this day for your country, or register your event: http://www.ginasthma.com/WADindex.asp

WAD in France: National campaign on patient education in asthma

The French Association Asthme & Allergies will celebrate World Asthma Day by promoting “asthma schools” in France. Patient education has a positive impact on chronic diseases, but many patients are unaware of the possibilities.
The Association is promoting patient education for people with asthma through a national communication campaign, including a press release, and the publication of a booklet and posters.

In Addition, at local levels, more than 100 different actions are organised in France: public open day in asthma schools, workshops, on-the-spot peak flow meter testing, sport competitions, distribution of booklets and posters…
The actions target a wide audience: people with asthma and their relatives, care givers, pharmacists, and doctors.
Contact person: Christine Rolland ch.rolland@asthme-allergies.asso.fr
For more information: http://www.asthme-allergies.org/nos-actions/journee-mondiale.php

WAD in Sweden: raising awareness of symptoms caused by fragrances and chemicals

Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association will coordinate their local asthma and allergy associations’ action to point out the problem with asthma- and allergy-like airway symptoms triggered by fragrances and other chemical substances. For World Asthma Day the association is publishing an article on this topic in a leading medical journal “Dagens Medicin”. Currently one county in Sweden, Västra Götaland recommends all staff to be fragrance free when working in hospitals. The Association will try to spread this message to the rest of Sweden! The target audiences are the local hospitals, patients, pharmacies and the local politicians.
Contact person: Eva-Maria Dufva: eva-maria.dufva@astmaoallergiforbundet.se
For more information: www.astmaoallergiforbundet.se

WAD in Norway: Multidisciplinary centres in allergy are needed to prevent asthma

The Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association (NAAF) issued a press release demanding cross-professional centres for diagnosis and treatment of allergy to focus on the relationship between allergy and development of asthma. The objective of NAAF is to have one centre established in each of the four health-regions in Norway, and to promote the right to correct diagnosis. It is important to prevent people from developing asthma: in Norway, the number of patients is still increasing, 70% of patients allergic all year round develop asthma, and 44 % of all patients with seasonal allergies (such as pollen allergy) have developed asthma.
NAAF is targeting the Government, in particular the Minister of Health, the Parliament, health authorities, as well as the administrations of the four health regions.
Contact person: Anne Elisabeth Eriksrud, anne.elisabeth.eriksrud@naaf.no For more information: http://www.naaf.no/no/Aktuelt/Nyhetsarkiv/Astma--og-allergibehandling-ma-sees-i-sammenheng/

Reimbursement practices of Asthma medication across Europe will be discussed at EFAConference

Sign up now! click here.