Asthma may be a minor nuisance to some. But during attack, also called asthma exacerbation, the airways become swollen and inflamed which could cause patients to gasp for breath or even stop breathing. A severe asthma attack can become a life-threatening emergency, and may even cause death.
According to Lotis Ramin, the country president of AstraZeneca Philippines, the Philippines has the second-highest asthma mortality in the world. Asthma is also the 10th-leading cause of death in the country.
With proper patient education and management, holistic care by having asthma part of the country’s health system, and the physicians’ and other stakeholders’ primary care capability building, among others, the burden of asthma may be a thing of the past.
This will be possible as the biopharmaceutical company recently launched a health initiative called Juan Healthy Lung Philippines. With the tagline, “No Juan should die from asthma,” the program focuses on the establishments of asthma centers all over the country, advance disease management capabilities and patient awareness.
Juan Healthy Lung Philippines
“The program actually started in Asia in 2017 with nine markets convening to look into the unmet needs in respiratory diseases including asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and even lung cancer. We wanted to understand the key gaps there. And in partnership with other stakeholders, like government, physicians and institutions, we may be able to come up partnership and solutions that resolve those gaps. Currently, this program has already received four government endorsements within Asia and has impacted about half million patients. And in the Philippines, we are actually bringing it just now with an overall vision to reduce asthma burden for the Filipino patients,” Ramin explained during the Philippine launch on December 16.
Within three years, the initiative aims to educate 1 million patients about the deadly disease, as well as to support building capacity of some 20,000 primary care physicians on comprehensive asthma care through clinical mentoring programs and adoption of updated local asthma guidelines.
Ramin said many patients tend to be misdiagnosed and mistreated because “they are not necessarily directed to the correct and proper health-care practitioner. That’s why it is important in the healthy lung initiative that we are able to address primary care and physician’s capability building, and to educate more doctors on the existing guidelines that are based on wide clinical data so that they can provide correct diagnosis earlier for patients.”
To further strengthen diagnosis and proper care, the initiative also targets to establish 100 asthma-care centers nationwide.
“We have already started the pilot center. We had a soft opening of the very first asthma-care center in partnership with the Ospital ng Muntinlupa. We are very excited about it,” Ramin said.
Also in the pipeline is strengthening capabilities of 10,000 pharmacists in educating patients on treatment adherence.
AstraZeneca boasts of a broad portfolio in respiratory diseases globally, as well as in the Philippines. The company operates in over 100 countries, and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide.
Beyond medicine
But the focus of the healthy lung program is beyond medicine, according to the Philippine country president. Ramin said the program is really meant to provide comprehensive solutions for patients to get the proper holistic care.
In the process, AstraZeneca also expressed willingness to help and be part of the Universal Health-care (UHC) program of the government.
“The UHC is a very important project of the government. What we want to do here is to build a partnership to provide a good model for primary health-care system upon execution or, rather, the full implementation of the UHC. We can be a strong supporter in that implementation. Also, we want to be able to bring in solutions coming from our initiatives, such as the healthy lung program,” Ramin said.
The event introduced the alliance of the program, namely the Philippine College of Chest Physicians, the Asthma Club of the Lung Center of the Philippines, the LCP Physicians’ Association Clinical Mentoring Program, the Philippine Pharmacists Association (PPhA) and the Ospital ng Muntinlupa.
In attendance for the milestone of asthma care in the Philippines were Dr. Camilo Roa Jr., consultant-pulmonologist and program director for the Asthma Comprehensive Care Unit in the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital and chairman of Juan Healthy Lung Philippines; Dr. Eileen Aniceto, program director, LCP Healthy Lungs Program and LCP Asthma Club; Dr. Dina Diaz, program director, Clinical Mentoring Program, LCP Physicians’ Association; Dr. Analiza Tatad, chairman, Department of Pediatrics, Ospital ng Muntinlupa; and Bryan Posadas, PRO of the PPhA and global executives of AstraZeneca.
The company looks forward to 2020 as the final year to really understand how broad it can do the project, and scale up to get better understanding of the right level of implementation.
Beyond the project is about the seriousness of asthma as a disease affecting the Filipinos. With asthma hospitalization ranking six in PhilHealth benefit claims, “we really want to be able to reduce that burden among Filipinos with the initiative hitting its goal.”
“With the healthy lung program, asthma patients will be given the right guidance from physicians through the physician capability building that we’re doing with the cascade of the new guidelines on correct treatment. Also, when they go to pharmacists, they would be able to get the correct information to make sure that they get the right treatment. And ultimately, we shall build asthma-care centers nationwide to provide them the comprehensive solutions that they need. Overall, the goal is for asthma patients to own up their disease, learn more and take control of it and live a more, meaningful life,” Ramin concluded.