Asthma is the leading chronic condition that affects children anywhere in the world – in the UK, 1 in 11 children and 1 in 12 adults have asthma. The annual cost to the NHS of treating asthma is around £1billion with more than 69,000 hospital admissions. It’s estimated that 75% of hospital admissions could be avoided while as many as 90% of the average 1,400 annual deaths are considered preventable.
Of the total number of asthma sufferers in the UK, around 1.2 million are said to be significantly affected by their condition. The asthma in 250,000 people is so serious that the usual inhalers and other types of medicine no longer have any effect.
The UK ranks No.5 in the world for asthma among 13-14 year olds while a third of the annual asthma death toll is in the under 65s. The condition is often first diagnosed in childhood and while more boys will have asthma than girls, that gender profile is switched in adulthood when the condition is more likely to affect women.
In the USA, around 23.2 million have asthma with children aged up to 18 making up more than a third of that total. Half a million people can expect to be hospitalised by their asthma every year in the US with the annual health care bill topping more than $14billion.
In Australia, more than 2 million people are asthma sufferers but unlike in the UK and US, annual asthma deaths have been falling for a decade. More than two decades of dedicated work by the National Asthma Council, formed to improve health outcomes and quality of life for asthma sufferers, has helped Australia lead the world in asthma education and management of the condition.
