EVENTO DRAMMATICO con 6 giovani deceduti per asma e 8500 persone accorse al Pronto Soccorso a Melbourne ma in Italia i giornali non ne hanno parlato, eppure questi episodi accadono anche da noi.

The Guardian (26 november 2016) : Thunderstorm asthma: how seasonal weather can affect human health (interview of Prof. G. D’Amato)

In questi giorni è accaduto a melbourne un evento epidemico molto grave con 6 giovani deceduti per asma grave, altri 5 sono in rianimazione e ben 8500 persone sono ricorse a cure mediche al pronto soccorso per Thunderstorm asthma (a melbourne è primavera e c’è una grande fioritura di graminacee.. Sono stato contattato dai giornalisti del The Guardian di melbourne i quali mi hanno chiesto consigli, avendo io pubblicato diversi lavori internazionali in pubmed su questo tema. Anche se è accaduto a Melbourne , che è una sede dove questi eventi insorgono più frequentemente, sappiamo che sono accaduti anche da noi, anche con episodi di near fatal asthma proprio a Napoli e siamo citati come esempio per i nostri studi. Ne hanno parlato tutti i giornali del mondo tranne quelli italiani Come Mai?

Dal The Guardian (26 november 2016) : Thunderstorm asthma: how seasonal weather can affect human health (interview of Professor Gennaro D’Amato)
When a thunderstorm occurs, pollen which had settled during the day can be swept back into the air and the moisture in those winds combined with wind power causes the pollen to rupture into smaller pieces, between 0.5mm and 2.5mm in diameter. Those small fragments are then able to penetrate the superficial respiratory system and get into the lungs, triggering asthma and other serious respiratory responses.
Gennaro D’Amato is a professor of respiratory medicine in Italy and chairman of the World Allergy Organisation’s climate change, biodiversity and allergy committee. He is the world expert on thunderstorm asthma and one of the most published authors on the phenomena in the scientific literature.
He has been monitoring thunderstorm asthma events throughout the world and says they have also been seen in London in the UK, Naples in Italy, and Wagga Wagga in New South Wales.

A sudden and extreme asthma outbreak that occurred in London in June 1994 coincided with a heavy thunderstorm, D’Amato said. In the space of just 30 hours, 640 patients with asthma or other airway diseases attended London hospitals, nearly 10 times the usual number. For 283 patients, the storm triggered their first known attack of asthma. And for every patient that did seek help, many more suffered at home.
“Fortunately, even though it can induce severe asthma, outbreaks associated with thunderstorms are neither frequent nor responsible for a high number of disease exacerbations,” D’Amato told Guardian Australia.

“However, the mechanisms involved in the release of allergens from pollens during thunderstorm should be known so that patients can receive information about the risk of an asthma attack, including in those usually only affected by seasonal allergic rhinitis [hay fever].”
The frequency of thunderstorms had recently increased in some geographical areas, he said, particularly in temperate and subtropical climates. Research has shown that thunderstorms and their destructive winds are expected to become more severe as the climate changes.
D’Amato has found a number of characteristics common to all of the asthma epidemics. Their occurrence is closely linked to thunderstorms, are limited to late spring and summer when there are high levels of airborne pollen grains, have an onset close to the arrival of the thunderstorm and to major rises in the concentration of pollen grains, and people with hay fever and asthma and who stay indoors with windows closed during the thunderstorm are unaffected.

Those not undergoing asthma treatment are at major risk, his research has also found. In the Melbourne epidemic on Monday, between 20 and 40% of those affected had never had asthma before, and so would not have been undergoing treatment.