In Mexico, 8.5 million Mexicans live with asthma, a chronic disease that, until before the pandemic caused by COVID-19, was the leading cause of care in the Emergency Department of the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases ( INER), because it is not diagnosed or treated in a timely and adequate manner.
Asthma is a chronic and inflammatory disease of the bronchi, characterized by recurrent respiratory problems, which appears as attacks or attacks of coughing, shortness of breath and wheezing in the chest. Most cases are allergic.
In one year, more than 100 patients have been treated at the Asthma Clinic
From April 2022 until now, the period in which non-COVID consultations at the INER were reactivated, around 100 patients have been treated at the Asthma Clinic, most of whom are related to allergies.
Regarding this, Érika del Carmen López Estrada, head of the Asthma Clinic in the INERwho has pointed out that “sometimes and due to ignorance, this condition is treated as a simple flu, for which antibiotics or self-medication are used to contain runny nose, sneezing, coughing, wheezing or shortness of breath , without suspecting something more serious that can trigger a crisis or put the life of the sufferer at risk.
In childhood, it affects boys and girls equally.
From 2019 to February 2020, 11,550 people with asthma received medical attention at the INER, of which 3,226 went to the emergency room, 7,976 to outpatients, and 348 were hospitalized and discharged.
From five to 14 years of age, cases occur indistinctly in girls and boys, although as the years go by there is a prevalence of two to one in women, due to genetics and hormonal changes.
Regarding allergens, 44.6 percent of patients with asthma are exclusively sensitive to indoor allergens, such as animal dander, mites, and cockroaches; 15.7 percent to some type of pollen and 39.6 percent present simultaneous sensitivity.