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Nikhil Chopra, India Business Head, Cipla speaks on busting myths on asthma and Ciplas' #BerokZindagi initiative to lead a better life in a conversation with Prabhat Prakash

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What is the incidence rate of asthma in India? How huge is the disease burden?

In India, 93 million people suffer from chronic respiratory diseases, of which 38 million people are diagnosed as asthmatics. One must note that these chronic respiratory diseases cause the second largest mortality after cardiovascular diseases. (Source: https:// www.thelancet.com/journals/lan glo/article/PIIS2214109X(18)30409-1/fulltext) Doctors across the nation see an average of around 30-40 patients suffering from respiratory diseases like asthma on a daily basis, and there is absolutely no sign of reduction of the disease burden. In fact, last year saw a whopping 25 per cent increase in the number of people suffering from respiratory symptoms compared to the previous year. It is estimated that one-third of the population will develop asthma at some point, and mostly before the age of 20. Factors such as the rise of particulate matter in the air, pollen, smoking, food habits, nutritional deficiency, hereditary predisposition and largely ignorance amongst parents only increase the prevalence of the disease.

As asthma is a chronic disease it poses a lot of economic burden on the patient. Is cost a deterrent?

Higher initial costs tend to hinder the adoption of consistent therapy for asthma in the lower socio-economic groups. However, if one considers the price bracket of inhalers which is the mainstay for treatment, a patient needs to shell out a daily cost of less than ̀ 10. Also, the range of solutions that we offer for asthma in India is not available anywhere else at such accessible prices. Hence, we can say that in terms of reasons for not adopting inhalation therapy for asthma, the lack of awareness and prevailing misconceptions about it far surpass the factor of cost burden for non-adoption.