Physician calls for national statistics on Asthma

Daily Graphic, Pg 14, Wednesday, May 06/09

Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho

A Physician at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Augustine Kwashie, has called on the Ministry of Health to collate data on asthma cases in Ghana.
According to him, although various health institutions have their own data on the number of cases they attend to, they have not been able to collate data to give a true picture of a national statistics.
He said knowing the national statistics of people with asthma would help to inform and in planning policy decisions.
Dr Kwashie made the call in Accra at a public lecture to mark this year’s World Asthma Day which was organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and sponsored by Qodesh Group International, producers of Quodesh powder for the management of asthma.
The day, which falls on the second Tuesday of May every year, was celebrated globally on the theme: “You can control asthma” with a sub-theme: “Asthma can kill, seek early treatment”.
Globally, Dr Kwashie said, three million people were estimated to have asthma, saying that the prevalence in countries had been increasing over the years and therefore there was the need for Ghana to capture such data to know its trend.
Dr Kwashie said asthma, which is a chronic inflammatory disorder of a persons airwaves, was widespread and mainly affected children and mostly adults between the ages of 50 and 65.
According to him, asthma — which patients are most often hyper-responsive leading to recurrent episodes of wheezing and breathlessness and are triggered by dust, tobacco smoke, mites, cockroaches, viral infections and emotions — was hereditary.
He said although asthma had equal gender presentation globally, in Ghana the KBTH had 74 per cent of adult females and 26 per cent of adult males under its care.
He said although there was no global cure for asthma, it could be treated when well managed and called on people to seek early care when they were confronted with it.
The General Manager of the Qodesh Group International, Reverend David Kyenkyenhene, in an address called for a statistical report on asthma especially its mortality rate and the effect on the economy.
He also called on the government to give equal recognition to the day and make it a national event as had been done with malaria and HIV and AIDS and further called for the enforcement of the law on the ban on public smoking.