Mild asthma – management strategy

16 Oct 2022 09:10 09:40
Sri Wahyu Taher Speaker

Primary care clinics follow up more than 50% of mild asthma patients. A smaller proportion are in the moderate to severe asthma. We are now seeing younger patients being diagnosed with asthma. Most of the time the diagnosis was made when they were children however, they are either loss to follow up or became asymptomatic thus needless for regular treatment. Primary care doctors are also seeing pregnant woman with asthma. Primary care has been chronically under resourced and asthma care has not been given adequate attention. For many years asthma treatment has been very basic and intensification of therapy is limited by financial constraint. The challenge we face is optimizing treatment at the very beginning of diagnosis in the hope that these patients stay in mild asthma category for longer duration. GINA 2022 has updated its treatment strategy addressing gaps in early intervention for anti-inflammatory and reliever therapy. How much money is allocated to treat mild asthma using the GINA 2022 recommendations? Despite the constraints, primary care doctors are expected to adopt these updated strategies in order to ensure symptomatic relief, reduction in exacerbation and hospitalization. This year MOH has begun asthma clinical audit implementation at primary care clinics and it is expected a dismal result. However, the audit results should be able to encourage and persuade MOH to improve support in asthma care in primary care setting. The HWP must include strategies on how to improve asthma care since it is long overdue.