The three tests that reveal your risk of developing thunderstorm asthma

In a major breakthrough, researchers have discovered three tests from a GP can check a person’s risk of developing thunderstorm asthma.

The phenomenon came to the attention of Melburnians during a deadly thunderstorm asthma event in 2016 when 10 people died and 14,000 sought help within a few hours.

Allergy specialist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne, Jo Douglass, told Ross and Russel “nearly everyone who gets thunderstorm asthma has hay fever”.

But with one-in-five people self-identifying as having hay fever, that doesn’t identify who is at greatest risk from a deadly thunderstorm asthma event.

Researchers have found three tests — a specific antibody test to rye grass pollen, a test of allergic cells in the blood called eosinophils, and a lung function test which shows function within the lower limit of normal — reveal who is at greatest risk.

Professor Douglass says people whose test results fall within the risk range on those three tests should “be encouraged to have preventative asthma treatment” during the hay fever season.

The breakthrough research was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Press PLAY below to hear more about who is at greatest risk from thunderstorm asthma