Fully 15,000- 20,000 patients are diagnosed with asthma each year in Hungary and 15,000-30,000 live with chronic asthma, Lilla Tamási, a pulmonologist at the Budapest Semmelweis University, said on World Asthma Day, adding that chronic sufferers receive advanced treatments.

A major problem is that around 50% of the asthma patients fail to regularly take their drugs 90% of which are paid for by the national health insurance fund, said Tamási, who is the deputy director of the university’s Pulmonology Clinic. World Asthma Day is marked on the first Tuesday of May.