Parents urged to predict child asthma attacks

PARENTS can easily predict potential asthma attacks to help reduce the one million-plus school days lost to the illness, an expert has advised.

The back-to-school period in September has become a time of peak hospital admissions, visits to emergency departments and family doctors for asthma sufferers. It is believed that the return to school increases children’s exposure to asthma triggers like indoor allergens, colds and viruses that tend to spread around schools during the first few weeks back in class.

Based on estimated figures of one in five children having asthma, and losing 10 days each year because of it, about 1.3 million school days are lost as a direct result of the disease annually.