Prevalence of Asthma in School going Children of Semi-Urban Area in the State of Madhya Pradesh

Childhood asthma is the common chronic illness among school going children and is reportedly under diagnosed and undertreated.1 Increase in the rates of hospital admission and primary care contacts for asthma in childhood has led to concern regarding prevalence or severity of increasing wheezing illness in children. Rise in prevalence of childhood asthma is a matter of concern worldwide and in India also.2-5 The steady rise in prevalence is correlated with demographic changes in city like increase in number of industries, increased density of population from migration of rural population and increased number of automobiles to commute resulting in air pollution.5 Data on prevalence of asthma is now available from several countries. There is very limited data on asthma epidemiology from the developing countries including India. But, few Indian studies have reported prevalence of childhood asthma ranging from 3.5% to 29.5. Diagnosis of asthma is often missed or delayed due to the dynamic nature of the disease, unreliable past history or poor documentation of past episodes or lack of specific and relative diagnostic investigation.6 Children with poorly controlled, untreated or under diagnosed asthma can have problems, as exercise induced bronco spasm (EIB) can leave them breathless and unable to participate or sometimes it could be dangerous.3 In this regard training of the school teachers with health guides may be one of the most important strategies for promotion of school health.7 There is no data available regarding prevalence of asthma in school children in the state of Madhya Pradesh.