Uruguay, Latin America

ISAAC in Uruguay

Uruguay is a very small country, however there were several studies about asthma prevalence since 1970, but all of them had a different methodology and differences in the age of the samples. The studies about allergies prevalence were very scarce.

In 1990 when I attended the ATS and IUATLD congress in Boston, I was aware that an international study about asthma and allergies was being prepared. When I came back to Montevideo I was very enthusiastic about including Uruguay in that study . I am a pneumologist and allergist pediatrician. At that time I was in charge of the Department of pulmonology, allergy and immunology of the Pereira Rossell hospital, so I talked with my colleagues Dra. María Julia Saráchaga and Dra. Sylvia Brea who worked with me and we decided to participate in the study. We were connected with ISAAC Steering Committee thanks to Dr. Fernando Martinez.

In the different asthma prevalence studies that had been done between 1970 and 1990, even taking into account that they had different methodology, we could see that there was a concerning increase in asthma prevalence. For this reason we considered very important to join ISAAC. We thought it was a huge step that would let us have real data about asthma and allergies prevalence in our country and give us the opportunity of comparing our data with the data of other countries involved in this study. With ISAAC we also expected to achieve a better understanding and treatment of our patients.

Since Uruguay participated in ISAAC, we can feel that there has been a growing concern about asthma in the physician community. Pediatricians were aware about the importance of ISAAC and our data by attending national congresses and courses of MCE related with these diseases. They are now more committed with the management of asthma, which is contributing to a better treatment of the patients.

We have not yet matched prevalence data between the core questionnaire and the environmental questionnaire.

In Phase One Montevideo was the only centre due to the low population of Uruguay. Montevideo the capital city of Uruguay has almost half of the population. In the hole country we are only 3.000.000 inhabitants,

In Phase Three a second centre was added thanks to the participation of Dra. Cristina Lapides in Paysandú city and ISAAC Steering Committee who accepted a lower number of children than Montevideo Centre. In Paysandú 1512 children participated in the 6-7 years group and 1738 in the 13-14 years group. It was very important to have a second centre within an area far from the capital city that included children from farmland, to have a better idea of the prevalence of asthma and allergies in Uruguay.

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from Glaxo Wellcome. We wish to thank all parents, children and school staff who participated in the surveys and also our fieldworkers team for their enthusiasm and effort thoughout each study.