Kids, Asthma, and H1N1

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My daughter got diagnosed with Asthma last week and it got me thinking about all of the times that she has had colds and been sick over the years. Of course the asthma was an even bigger deal right now with H1N1 hitting the headlines and 5 hour plus lineups here in Calgary Canada for H1N1 flu shots.

Nearly one-third, or 28 percent, of adults and children hospitalized with H1N1, also known as swine flu, have asthma. That’s more than any other chronic condition, according to a recent analysis of cases published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“Asthma was the most common underlying medical condition that we saw,” says Seema Jain, M.D., a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jain’s team analyzed 272 people who were hospitalized with swine flu for more than 24 hours between April and June.

Twenty-five percent were admitted to the intensive care unit and 7 percent died. Overall, 29 percent of children and 27 percent of in adults in the study had asthma, while only about 8 percent of the U.S. population has asthma, according to Jain.

Richard Gower, M.D., the president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, says about 25 million people in the United States have the chronic lung condition, including 8 million children.

Asthma is more common in children than in adults, and swine flu seems to strike younger people more often than older ones — a complete flip-flop from seasonal flu.

One thing to be very aware of is the changes that we have seen for many sicknesses our conditions that kids have. Just a few years ago nut allergies, autism,  and, asthma were not a big issue in schools but now schools everywhere have banned nut products, there is a huge number of kids with autism and even though some stats say that the number of kids with Asthma is 6 or 8 percent other numbers say the number is as high as 25% especially with many people going undiagnosed.