They said many people in rural areas believe that asthma is incurable as the scope for proper diagnosis of the disease is very limited there.

The seminar was organised jointly by the Allergy and Asthma Centre and Centre for Advancement of Medicine in Bangladesh at the National Press Club to build awareness on ' Causes of asthma and its prevention.'

"It needs medicine, avoidance of allergen that triggers asthma and immunotherapy or allergy vaccine to keep asthma under control and live a healthier life, " said Dr Gobinda Chandra Das, a senior consultant and departmental head of Allergy and Clinical Immunology of Shaheed Suhrawardy Hospital.

Quoting a report of World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Gobinda said the number of asthma patient is more than 15 crore in the world and every year around 26 lakh people die due to this disease.

In Bangladesh, the number of asthma patient is around 70 lakh, and every year 50000 more people are diagnosed with asthma, he said.

Of them, only five percent of the total patients are receiving proper treatment, he added.

Dr Gobinda said the number of asthma patient is increasing day by day due to augmented environmental pollution, congested housing and peoples' intake of adulterated food.

Terming asthma as a global problem Dr Humayun Kabir, director of Pulmonary and Critical Care Services and Chief of Medical Staff of Jellico Community Hospital of USA, said even in the United States 18 to 20 million people are asthmatics and 5000 deaths occur every year.

Dr Humayun stressed the need for local and global initiative partnership, physician and patient partnership, and physician and community partnership for the management of asthma.

He said therapy and education are needed simultaneously in this regard and the gap between knowledge and practice should be reduced at any cost.