Deadly lung disease hits Pacific Island children

Auckland health workers are worried about a potentially fatal lung disease which strikes Pacific Island children at almost five times the rate of the general juvenile population.

All but four of 140 youngsters being treated in the Auckland region for bronchiectasis, or BX for short, are of Pacific or Maori descent.

Researchers believe Pacific children have a one in 625 chance of contracting the disease, compared with a general juvenile rate of one in 3000.

This prompted Starship Children's Health to team with the new Tamaki Primary Health Organisation over the school holidays to take an educational "roadshow" to areas of high Polynesian populations such as the Otara and Otahuhu markets.

Health workers say BX is relatively easy to treat if diagnosed early enough, but causes irreversible damage and scarring to breathing tubes and lungs when left unattended.

They say that if untreated, it will almost always result in death from respiratory failure after several decades, and at least eight children in the Starship are already believed to be at the end-stage of the disease.

Starship clinical nurse specialist Lorraine Stevens said a key message of the campaign was that parents and caregivers should seek medical help for children who have been coughing daily for more than six weeks.

Any such cough should be seen as abnormal, she said, and might indicate underlying lung disease.

Bronchiectasis causes the lungs to make unusual amounts of mucus, which get stuck in the breathing tubes, providing fertile ground for germs to grow and cause infections.

The tubes become "baggy and floppy", and holes eventually form in the lungs.