With Asthma Day coming up, Edrine Osteen Mukalazi sat down with Dr. Rebecca Nantanda to discuss "Closing the gap on #Asthma care for children on the Health Pot show." Leave on a comment and let us know whether this video has been educational for you. ............................................ ... ............................................................................................................... ✽ Our guest Rebecca Nantanda ✽ ⊳ Dr. Rebecca Nantanda is a member of the Institute Technical Board (ITB) of Makerere University Lung Institute. ⊳ She has been involved in research on respiratory diseases in children for the past 12 years with specific focus on pneumonia and asthma. ⊳ She has a number of publications in peer-reviewed journals and has made several presentations at International and Local Scientific conferences on the above subjects. ⊳ She is currently involved in research, clinical care and pre-service and in-service training of health care professionals. ⊳ Her qualifications contain MBChB (MUST), M.Med Paediatrics and Child Health (MUK), PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sida- Makerere Research Program. more

Under-diagnosis of asthma in ‘under-fives’ may be alleviated by improved inquiry into disease history. We assessed a questionnaire-based screening tool for asthma among 614 ‘under-fives’ with severe respiratory illness in Uganda. The questionnaire responses were compared to post hoc consensu ... s diagnoses by three pediatricians who were guided by study definitions that were based on medical history, physical examination findings, laboratory and radiological tests, and response to bronchodilators. Children with asthma or bronchiolitis were categorized as “asthma syndrome”. Using this approach, 253 (41.2%) had asthma syndrome. History of and present breathing difficulties and present cough and wheezing was the best performing combination of four questionnaire items [sensitivity 80.8% (95% CI 77.6–84.0); specificity 84.7% (95% CI 81.8–87.6)]. The screening tool for asthma syndrome in ‘under-fives’ may provide a simple, cheap and quick method of identifying children with possible asthma. The validity and reliability of this tool in primary care settings should be tested. more