KARACHI, May 31: Noman Saigol, advisor to the chief minister on health, has underscored the need for better management of asthma.

Speaking as the cheif guest at a seminar organised by the Pakistan Chest Society here on Saturday, he said that compared to other lethal diseases which due to effective strategy went down in the recent period, asthma was increasing at an alarming rate.

He urged chest specialists to form a team of experts to check the menace.

“The government stands committed to extending help to the efforts made to control the disease which is afflicting a great number of people in the country,” said the advisor.

Dr Mosavir Ansarie, head of the department of chest medicine, Liaquat National Hospital, in his speech on the occasion, stressed the need for updated regimen of drugs under careful supervision of qualified physicians for efficient control of asthma.

He said the change in the understanding of pathophysiology of the disease needed to be efficiently addressed through updated and better researched drugs.

According to him, long-term preventive therapy and efficient management to control the condition are prerequisites to combat the disease.

Consultant chest physician, Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre, Dr Nasir Hussein, in his presentation on asthma and allergic rhinitis said that 80 per cent of patients suffering from allergic rhinitis were inflicted with asthma, and 20 per cent of them suffered from asthma alone.

Dr Naseeruddin Mahmood, consultant paediatrician and neonatologist, and Dr M. Ashraf Sadiq, director Ojha Institute of Chest Disease, also spoke on the occasion.

There has been a surge in the prevalence of asthma world over. in Pakistan it was estimated to have a 10 per cent prevalence in 1998, which increased to 19 per cent in 2002.—APP