GA²LEN (Global Allergy and Asthma European Network) addresses the allergy and asthma ‘epidemic’

Abstract

Allergic diseases represent a major health problem in Europe. They are increasing in prevalence, severity and costs. The Global Allergy and Asthma European Network (GA(2)LEN), a Sixth EU Framework Program for Research and Technological Development (FP6) Network of Excellence, was created in 2005 as a vehicle to ensure excellence in research bringing together research and clinical institutions to combat fragmentation in the European research area and to tackle allergy in its globality. The Global Allergy and Asthma European Network has benefited greatly from the voluntary efforts of researchers who are strongly committed to this model of pan-European collaboration. The network was organized in order to increase networking for scientific projects in allergy and asthma around Europe and to make GA(2)LEN the world leader in the field. Besides these activities, research has also been carried out and the first papers are being published. Achievements of the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network can be grouped as follows: (i) those for a durable infrastructure built up during the project phase, (ii) those which are project-related and based on these novel infrastructures, and (iii) the development and implementation of guidelines. The major achievements of GA(2)LEN are reported in this paper.

Reduction of asthma burden is possible through National Asthma Plans

“…The World Health Organization (WHO) assumes that 300 million people are affected by this disease, and its incidence is still rising, involving estimated 100 million further patients by the year 2025. Around 250 000 people die prematurely each year as a result of asthma (2,3). Readers of Allergy know this, but what about other colleagues like general practitioners (GP) and policy makers responsible for allocation of funds for health care?…”

Identification of asthma phenotypes in children

“…Clearly, this is not the case today for childhood asthma. The current lack of understanding of underlying mechanisms and our inability to predict prognosis or to tailor medicines individually stem from the difficulty in characterising distinct subgroups of childhood asthma [2,4,5].…”

Geographic Medical History: Advances in Geospatial Technology Present New Potentials in Medical Practice

“…Exposure to harmful airborne fungal spores (HAFS) is known to cause a wide range of adverse health effects, mild to severe. While the impact of outdoor mold spores on health has been documented in a host of literature (Dales, et al, 2000;Burney et al, 2008;Simon-Nobbe et al, 2007;Bousquet et al, 2009), information on the abundance of these spores is not available on a local scale because of sparsity monitoring facilities. The National Allergy Bureau (NAB) of the US maintains a number of mold spore monitoring stations to provide information to the public about outdoor mold levels.…”