Breathe Free

According to Salvi,about three billion people,half the world’s population,are exposed to smoke from biomass fuel,compared with 1.01 billion people who smoke tobacco,suggesting that exposure to biomass smoke might be the biggest risk factor for COPD globally. In 2002,Salvi set up the CRF in the city to bridge this gap and generate India-specific knowledge on asthma and COPD. He and his colleagues Bill Brashier,Sneha Sundeep Salvi Limaye and Rahul Kodgule reported an almost two-fold increase in the prevalence of asthma among children during the last five years of school.

Excess consumption of paracetamol during the first six months of life was also shown to increase the risk of developing asthma when the child grows up to be six or seven years old. The team further found that exposure to diesel fumes,mosquito coils and incense stick fumes also increased the risk of asthma. Other risk factors for childhood asthma could be family history,caesarean delivery,absence of exclusive breast feeding during the first six months,damp walls at home harbouring different species of fungi and resident smokers.

“Asthma is still considered a social taboo and people do not readily associate with it. However,it is important to understand that asthma is not as dreadful a disease as portrayed,” says Salvi. It is just a hyper responsive state of the lungs,where the airways in the lungs have a tendency to overreact to certain allergens in the air. Contrary to popular belief that asthmatics present with breathlessness,most asthmatics present with a long lasting cough or nocturnal sleeplessness due to their spasmodic cough. Such patients find it difficult to accept that it is asthma,leading to undue suffering which can be easily avoided.