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A day committed to promoting asthma awareness and the continued development of treatments. Here, we highlight the history behind the day, as well as some ways in which you can get involved to promote asthma research and cure development – both in the UK and across the world.
What is World Asthma Day?
World Asthma Day is an annual event, designed to “improve asthma awareness and care around the world”. It’s organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), an organisation made up of leading asthma experts from across that world that was launched back in 1993. The day, and it’s message, is also supported by the World Asthma Foundation.
The first occurrence of World Asthma Day was back in 1998, and coincided with the inaugural World Asthma Meeting held in Spain – involving over 35 countries. From these early beginnings, World Asthma Day has now grown into what is widely recognised as the world’s most important asthma awareness event.
According to the organisers, the aim of World Asthma Day is to “raise awareness, care and support for those affected by asthma”. Although this has a natural focus on the people that suffer from asthma themselves, it also extends the support to those around them – including family, friends, partners and caregivers.
How can you get involved?
According to Asthma UK: “there are 5.4 million people with asthma in the UK, which means asthma affects one in every 11 people and one in five households.” This staggering statistic highlights how important it is that we continue developing asthma treatments, and how beneficial they will be to wide swathes of the population.
There are lots of ways to get involved with World Asthma Day if you want to show your support for the event. Asthma UK host a Big Asthma Bake Sale to ‘raise some dough’ for asthma research, and encourage people to join them in hosting bake sales either on the 1st May, or on another date during May. Find out more on the bake sales, and how to get a fundraising pack, on the Asthma UK website. You get to raise money for a great cause and eat cake – what’s not to love?
FluCamp and Asthma
At FluCamp, we understand that asthma can be an incredibly worrying and debilitating illness for those who suffer. If you have asthma it can also mean that you suffer from other illnesses, such as a common cold, in a more severe manner than those who don’t have asthma – increasing the concern for both you and those around you.
We conduct studies in order to discover new medications and treatments that can either reduce the severity of asthma attacks and their symptoms, or stop them before they even get started. This groundbreaking work is reliant on volunteers, or Everyday Heroes as we like to call them, who help us to push forward with our research. To find out more about becoming one of these Everyday Heroes, read more on our trials for asthma sufferers.
We also produce lots of content aimed at asthma sufferers, from whether or not it’s recommended to exercise, to information on preventing asthma attacks and how symptoms can change throughout the year. Don’t forget to check back on our blog regularly to avoid missing out on our latest pieces!
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