Coronavirus: Focus on the intake of your controller medicines – Asthma specialist to patients

People with chronic respiratory diseases are said to be less able to fight viruses themselves because their lung mucosa are mostly weakened.

However, an asthma specialist at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital believes asthma patients are not more susceptible to COVID-19 so long as their asthma is well-controlled. Rather, poorly-controlled asthma may make one susceptible to more severe COVID-19 infection and death.

According to him, it is important for asthma sufferers to know that so long as their disease is well-controlled, they are not at higher risk 19 COVID-19. However, it is known that people whose asthma is not well-controlled are at higher risk.

Dr. Dadzie who was speaking in an exclusive interview with GhanaWeb emphasized that the need for asthmatic patients to take in their control medicines shouldn’t be underestimated under any circumstance.

“One of the major ways of preventing asthmatic attacks or symptoms is the adherence to the intake of controller medicines and also knowing your triggers.”

"Asthma doesn't just show up out of the blue. Asthma has triggers and each person's triggers are different. Dust, cigarette, smoke or body spray might be your trigger so knowing your trigger will also help you prevent most of the attacks

“I’m encouraging all asthmatic patients to religiously take their Controller or preventer medicines rather than relying on only reliever medicines especially in the wake of this global pandemic and also report any discomfort in breathing to your physician. “He said.

"In order to prevent needless deaths from asthma, it is highly recommended that people with asthma desist from using only reliever medicines but rather depend on controller medicines especially during this menace of COVID-19".

He charged asthmatic patients to follow the Ghana Health Service’s safety protocol tips and stop brooding over the contraction of the disease.

Dr Dadzie also pointed out that wearing a nose mask like FFP3 masks with filter function, can be unpleasant for lung patients in particular, as it makes breathing somewhat more difficult. He however said that shouldn’t be an excuse asthmatic patients to go ‘maskless’ in town because there are more friendly nose masks available in town citing the locally produced mask as an example.

Meanwhile, a resident doctor at the Department of Family Medicine at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Ernest Anim Opare bemoaned how Ghanaians keep defying the social distancing order in public and also walk about without nose mask.

He intimated that doctors have maximized their effort against the coronavirus fight thus it’s imperative for citizens to do so in order to win the fight against this deadly disease.