Small flats could be contributing to asthma in HK children

Hong Kong children could be more disposed towards developing asthma than mainland children because of conditions commonly found in the city's tiny apartments, researchers say.

According to a Chinese University study, one in five preschool children born in Hong Kong suffered from asthma or related hypersensitive allergic disorders. But the incidences were much less for children who had spent their earliest years on the mainland, it found.

Researchers said gas cooking, foam pillows, the painkiller paracetamol and dampness were risk factors for Hong Kong children.

More than 3,000 children aged two to six were involved in the study - 234 of whom were born on the mainland. Conducted in 2005, the study was the first of its kind in Hong Kong to look into the prevalence of asthma and related symptoms among preschool children.

Overall, it showed that in the year before the study, 21.7 per cent of the children had experienced one or more atopic symptoms, such as wheezing, inflammation of the eyes and nose, and eczema on the skin of the joints, but only 5 per cent were diagnosed with asthma.

Study leader Gary Wong Wing-kin, of the department of paediatrics, said many atopic symptoms were significantly more common in children born in Hong Kong. For example, the prevalence of wheezing was 9.6 per cent for those born in Hong Kong, compared with 3.4 per cent for children born on the mainland.

'The first two or three years of environmental exposure can be crucial to children's health, affecting whether they may develop asthma in the future,' Dr Wong said.