Sometimes the story can be told in statistics. India accounts for 13% of the global population, yet it accounts for 42% of global asthma mortality.
Around 35 million Indians are thought to be living with asthma, the highest national burden in the world. The country of 1·4 billion people is served by roughly 4000 pulmonologists.
Neighbouring China, with a slightly smaller population, has 35 000 respiratory specialists in tertiary hospitals alone.
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine published a clinical update in Critical Care on 03 Mar 2026.
The item focuses on Asthma in India: myths, misdiagnosis, and high mortality.
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