The second annual World Asthma Day, scheduled for 03-May-2000, is shaping up as a major international event, all organizations with a concern about asthma are asked to initiate special activities to observe it.

Over 150 million people in the world are diagnosed with asthma. In the United States, an estimated 14.9 million people have asthma. The prevalence increased by 102 percent between 1979-80 and 1993-94. While the number of adults with asthma is greater than the number of children with asthma, the prevalence of asthma is rising more rapidly in preschool aged children than in any other group.

The theme this year is Let Every Person Breathe, in recognition of the need for people with asthma throughout the world to have access to timely diagnosis, appropriate treatment, and education to help control their condition.

The goals are to:

• increase awareness of asthma as a global health problem;

• communicate scientific progress being made; and

• involve public authorities and patient organizations in implementation of effective asthma management programs.

However, statistics in today's Vidyya, to be found in the artice entitled Asthma Fact Sheets, testify to the huge global burden of asthma. Initiatives such as World Asthma Day have important roles to play in education and awareness and, for this reason, Vidyya is pleased to pass along this information for the second World Asthma Day.

In this issue, you will find items from the World Asthma Day sponsors.

• Asthma fact sheets

  These fact sheets from the World Asthma Day sponsors contain statistics to highlight the global scale of the asthma problem.

• A list of contacts from California to India to find out more about World Asthma Day and Asthma Awareness Month.