ABSTRACT
In recent years, childhood asthma has become the major childhood chronic disease not only in developed countries but also in developing nations. This is evident from results of the recent collaborative Phase I of the International Study on Asthma and Allergic Diseases in Childhood (ISAAC), which demonstrated that prevalences of childhood asthma from most developing countries are similar to those observed in developed nations.1 Moreover, children under 15 years of age generally accounted for 40-50% of the total population in developing countries, compared with 20% in developed countries. It is estimated that there are approximately 15 billion children under 15 years in developing countries, compared with 300 million in the developed countries.2 These numbers accentuate the magnitude of the problem of childhood asthma in developing countries. This chapter represents a combined effort of contributors from three continents (AfricaSouth Africa, Asia-Thailand, and South America-Brazil) to present the current status
overview for developing countries, followed by discussion concerning each continent to highlight similarities and differences between continents.
