Control of asthma in children

Abstract

I have had an interest in the control of asthma in children since the early 1990’s. In those early years I documented, for the first time in South Africa, the significant lack of asthma and allergic rhinitis control in South African children.1-3 These studies suggest that, like surveys from the rest of the world, asthma control is seriously under-estimated and neglected in all asthmatics in South Africa, in both the privileged and the under-privileged. My research has a unique perspective, conferred by the fact that atopic respiratory disease and HIV-related chest illnesses, do not occur to the same extent anywhere else in the world. Atopic respiratory conditions and HIV-related lung diseases occur side by side in abundance in this region. This perspective has created a clarity for research to address the two most important aims in clinical medicine, namely to diagnose correctly and then to manage the condition so that control is achieved. These must be universal principles of the successful practice of medicine.