When spring and summer alternate, asthma enters a period of high incidence. Asthma, the most common chronic respiratory disease in childhood, is susceptible to seasonal effects and often manifests as persistent cough and wheezing. In the “Healthy China 2030” Planning Outline, it is clearly proposed how to implement the Healthy Children Plan, and it emphasizes that prevention should be the focus and the combination of prevention and treatment. In view of the risk factors that seriously endanger children’s health, it is required to implement prevention and control strategies of early screening, early diagnosis and early treatment.
This morning, many authoritative academic experts in China participated in the China Children’s Asthma and Chronic Cough Management Summit both online and offline. The summit focused on four aspects: comprehensive interpretation of domestic and foreign guidelines for childhood asthma and chronic cough, standardized management model for childhood asthma, assessment of childhood asthma diagnosis methods, and future discipline development paths in the epidemic era. progress, and effectively promote the standardized diagnosis and treatment and management of childhood asthma in my country.
Participating experts pointed out that the overall level of childhood asthma prevention and treatment in my country is not ideal, and standardized diagnosis and treatment are facing huge challenges. Many parents of children do not understand that mild symptoms also need treatment, do not understand that children’s asthma cannot be cured by themselves, and sometimes worry that hormones will affect their children’s growth and development. Some parents know that their child has asthma, but let their guard down when they don’t have frequent attacks. There are also some parents, even if the doctor prescribes the medicine, they will feel that the medication is troublesome and will not insist on the medication for a long time. In fact, if children’s asthma does not follow the standard diagnosis and treatment and is not well controlled, it is easy to cause acute asthma attacks. Acute asthma exacerbations in children can lead to a decline in lung function, and the more the number of attacks, the more obvious the decline in lung function. According to GINA 2022, a global guideline for the prevention and treatment of asthma, acute exacerbation of asthma is an important factor that increases the risk of asthma-related death, and data show that up to 30% of asthma deaths still occur in patients with infrequent symptoms.
The new crown epidemic has posed a huge challenge to the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases of the respiratory system. On the one hand, frequently used disinfectants may become “toxic agents” for asthma patients, increasing the risk of asthma exacerbations. On the other hand, children with asthma have poor lung function and poor autoimmunity. Once infected with the new coronavirus, it is easy to induce acute asthma attacks. In the prevention and treatment of childhood asthma in the epidemic era, it is necessary to strengthen the public’s correct understanding and management awareness of childhood asthma, realize the standardized whole-process management of childhood asthma, and avoid the risk of acute attacks.
The shortage of medicines for children is also a major problem in the field of pediatrics. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of children’s medical treatment is increasing by 4-5 million per year. However, the children’s medicines in the essential medicine list cannot meet the medical needs of pediatric clinical medicines. Because children’s bodies are in the developmental stage, their organs are immature, and their physiological structures are very different from adults. Therefore, children with asthma should be more carefully selected from the very beginning, and more attention should be paid to them. Inclusion of the best children’s asthma medicines in domestic and foreign guidelines into the list of children’s essential medicines can improve the safety and effectiveness of children’s treatment, and help more children with asthma to receive standardized treatment and medication.
（Pan Jiayi）