Asthma and respiratory viruses don't go well together. Weakened by the common cold or the flu, a person suffering an asthma attack often responds poorly to emergency treatment; some must be hospitalized. This is especially true for preschoolers.
Asthma and respiratory viruses don't go well together. Weakened by the common cold or the flu, a person suffering an asthma attack often responds poorly to emergency treatment; some must be hospitalized. This is especially true for preschoolers.
But what if there were a simple solution to help ward off the double whammy of an asthma attack and a respiratory virus? Well, there is one: to prevent getting sick, asthmatics can get an annual flu shot.
Unfortunately, however, only about 60 per cent do – but that might change.
In a new study in the journal Pediatrics, researchers at the Université de Montréal-affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine children's hospital and a master's student in epidemiology at McGill University make a strong case for vaccinating asthmatic kids against flu.
Just over one in 10 Canadian children have asthma, about 600,000 under the age of 12. The chronic disease often starts in early childhood, before six years of age, in the pre-school years.
Read more at University of Montreal
