You Can Control Your Asthma is the theme of World Asthma Day marked tomorrow.

Affecting 300 million people worldwide, asthma causes 180,000 deaths each year.

According to the latest European Health Interview Survey, nine per cent of the Maltese population suffers from the disease, which is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways.

A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, which is supporting the event, said that although it could not be cured, when asthma was controlled people could avoid troublesome symptoms, with little or no reliever medication and lead productive, physically active lives with near normal lung function.

“Unfortunately, research suggests that, despite the availability of treatments, more than half of asthma patients have poor control over their condition,” he said.

GSK contributed to developing the free asthma control test, which provides a score to help determine the level of treatment required, and which is available for free at www.asthmacontroltest.com.

The Maltese Asthmatic Society will address the latest medical advice on asthma during a public conference to be held tomorrow at the Phoenicia Hotel in Floriana.

Further details about World Asthma Day and proper asthma management are available on the Global Initiative for Asthma website at www.ginasthma.org.