A steroid used to treat asthmatics may have protected them from infection by the coronavirus, a member of an health group said yesterday.

Tracy Nash, the director of education at asthma charity Open Airways, said that asthmatics were not as badly affected by Covid-19 as they were expected to be – and had actually been shown to recover from infection more easily.

She added that studies had suggested budesonide, a steroid used in asthma treatment, may be responsible for keeping them safe.

Ms Nash said: “People who have asthma, if they have been taking their inhalers, may well have had some protection because of their asthma inhalers.

“Of course, at the start of the pandemic we were concerned that we would see people with asthma dying from Covid-19, but the actual death rate for people with asthma has been lower than what would have been expected.

“It’s actually been some good news – however, it does mean that people have to have well-controlled asthma.”

Ms Nash added: “It seems that maybe some of the asthma medications may be protective – there’s more information coming out all the time that some potential treatments are actually ones that asthmatics have been using for their prevention.”

Ms Nash emphasised that people with well-controlled asthma were more likely to recover from Covid-19 – but it did not stop people becoming infected.

She added that more research was needed to determine how affective budesonide was – but that the research was “looking very promising”.

Ms Nash was speaking in preparation of World Asthma Day, which aims to improve awareness of the respiratory disease and starts tomorrow.

She admitted that Open Airways had to cancel their typical celebration at Hamilton City Hall for the second year in a row because of Government safety protocols.

She added that they had instead opted to sharing their message through social media.

Ms Nash said that Open Airways had initially been concerned for asthmatics at the start of the pandemic because of fears that they were more susceptible.

She added that their Medical Assistance Programme allowed them to give inhalers to about 90 people who had taken financial hits during the pandemic.

Ms Nash said that the programme received donations from corporate sponsors and that, while she could not determine the amount that was raised, it was enough to provide clients with about two inhalers per month.

She added: “We’ve had a lot more calls from people about their asthma treatment, especially early on when the pandemic started because they were kind of confused about what they were supposed to do.

“We were able to put them on the right path, tell them what they should be doing and how to get their asthma well-controlled, so that was great because that’s what we want to see.

“I think that’s been beneficial, because I think a lot of people have realised that if they do use their treatments correctly they actually feel a lot better.”

Ms Nash encouraged asthmatics to use a single maintenance and relief therapy inhalers – “SMART inhaler” – to treat airway constriction and inflammation with one device.