Publications

The Child Lung Health Programme has produced technical guides to the management of children with cough or difficult breathing, a diagnostic atlas of intrathoracic TB in children, and a desk guide for management of childhood TB. All are focused on the needed of low-income countries and other limited-resource settings. Click here for details.

Research

The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood

The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) was formed in 1991 to facilitate research into asthma, allergic rhinoconjunctivitis and atopic eczema. This unique three-phase project has attracted worldwide interest and unprecedented large-scale participation; it currently involves almost 100 countries.

ISAAC is chaired by Prof Innes Asher from the Department of Paediatrics, Child and Youth Health at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, with support from regional coordinators who serve on the ISAAC Steering Committee. Prof Nadia Aït-Khaled from The Union is the Regional Coordinator for Francophone Africa and a member of the Steering Committee.

• ISAAC Phase One demonstrated for the first time that asthma is by its scale and frequency a global public health problem that includes sub-Saharan Africa where the average prevalence of asthma in 1995-1996 had already reached 10% of children between 13 and 14 years old living in big cities.
• ISAAC Phase Two involved more intensive studies in a smaller number of selected centres. It began in 1998 and enabled internationally standardised comparisons of disease and relevant risk factors.
• ISAAC Phase Three began in 2003 and data are still coming in. This phase of the study allowed for estimations of the trend in the prevalence of asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis and eczema and highlighted a continuous increase of asthma in almost all of the centres in low- and middle-income countries included in this study. 

Research on child lung health published by The Union

To see all recent published research, please click here (PDF 197K0)