EDITORIAL

Viruses, wheezing, atopy and asthma

Coughs and wheezes spread diseases: but what about the environment?

A Bush

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor A Bush
Department of Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, Royal Brompton Hospital, Sydney Street, London SW3 6NP, UK; a.bush@rbh.nthames.nhs.uk

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Interactions between viral infections, wheezing, atopy and asthma in children

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Keywords: asthma; atopy; wheeze; children; viruses

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

One disagreeable part of growing up is the inevitable encounters with respiratory viruses which, in about half the population, will have led to at least one wheezing episode before school age. For many the symptoms of wheeze are trivial and require no or only intermittent treatment but, for others, winter in particular turns into a nightmare of recurrent hospital admissions punctuated by brief periods of perfect health before the next viral infection takes hold. All concerned feel powerless in both prevention and treatment; for many families it is inevitable that they use childcare facilities, a fertile virological breeding ground. In any case, the possible protective effects of viral infections against later asthma (below) should give pause for thought before removing the child from the crèche. Although there is some evidence that intermittent high dose inhaled corticosteroids¹ or oral montelukast^2–4 may be adequate treatment, many children . . . [Full text of this article]

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