The unmet needs of millions of severe asthma patients and the role of new therapies to control the condition are being highlighted during World Asthma Day today.
Coordinated by the Global Initiative for Asthma (Gina), the theme The Unmet Needs of Asthma emphasises the urgent need for new therapies, such as Xolair - a new first-in-class medication that targets the root cause of attacks.
This therapy is a new approach to the treatment of severe allergic asthma since it is the first one that blocks the action of immunoglobulin E - the antibody responsible for triggering allergic reactions.
Xolair has now been approved by health authorities in 43 countries and has been launched in 10 of them, including the US, Canada, Germany, UK, Ireland, and Portugal. It has also been approved and is available in Malta.
More than 300 million people across the globe suffer from asthma, including 30 million in Europe. Around 18 per cent of those with asthma in Western Europe are classified as having severe disease, and within this group a minority continues to experience inadequately controlled symptoms despite the best available therapy.
In Malta, children are among the highest sufferers of asthma and allergies owing to high levels of air pollution, including fine dust emitted from soft stone quarries.
According to the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Children, which ranks Malta third among European countries for childhood asthma and states, the island has the third highest rate in the world of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis among children.
Behind these statistics lie stories of lives and families devastated by the condition, as described in Fighting for Breath, the European Federation of Asthma and Allergy Diseases Patients Associations' 2005 report on severe asthma.
"Xolair is a real breakthrough for the treatment of severe allergic asthma patients who remain symptomatic despite optimised treatment," said Stephen Holgate, Clinical Professor of Immunopharmacology at the University of Southampton, UK.
"Such patients can be at significant risk of life-threatening attacks and regular hospital admission. We finally have a treatment option that blocks the trigger of attacks to reduce asthma symptoms, offering effective long-term disease management, even in severe disease."
International studies have shown that this treatment significantly reduces the number of asthma exacerbations (attacks) and almost halves the rate of emergency visits for patients with severe persistent asthma, who were inadequately controlled despite receiving the therapy specified in current guidelines.