Guillaume Dominguez / Photo credit: SOLÈNE ARTAUD / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 10:59 am, May 02, 2023

This Tuesday, May 2 is World Asthma Day. An event, created in 1998 at the initiative of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), which brings together health professionals and people with asthma from around the world, to exchange and learn about various topics related to asthma. In France, this lung disease affects more than four million people.

It is an event created in 1998 at the initiative of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). It brings together health professionals and people with asthma to exchange and learn about the various topics related to the disease. In France, more than four million people are affected. The researchers note that there is not "asthma", but several forms of the disease whose study should lead to the development of new, more targeted treatments. How is this disease characterized?

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Coughing, wheezing, inability to breathe...

Asthma is an inflammation of the bronchi that causes difficulty breathing. Certain particles in the air, such as dust, pollen or tobacco smoke, for example, irritate the very fine muscles that operate the bronchi and cause them to swell. Mucus forms in the lungs, to protect them, and this is what triggers the asthma attack.

They result in coughing, wheezing, or even in the most severe cases, the inability to breathe. Each year, more than 900 deaths and 60,000 hospitalizations related to this disease are recorded in France.

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Asthma cannot be cured

To date, there is no definitive treatment. The only solutions are to treat seizures in an emergency using Ventolin-type inhalers to dilate the bronchi, to which are added background courses based on corticosteroids that desensitize the lungs and delay the onset of new attacks.