Prevalence of allergy and asthma in a rural community of children and adults in Bolivian Chaco

Here we report the results of a study conducted in a rural commu-nity of the Chaco region, south-eastern Bolivia, in September 2018,aimed at determining the prevalence of asthma and sensitizations toenvironmental inhaled allergens in children and adults. A total of 181 subjects have been screened for sensitizations to in-haled allergens, 112 children attending the primary school (60 males,52 females,meanage10,03 years) and 69adults (16males, 53females,mean age 40,94 years) among the parents that gave their consent toparticipate to the study. This study, even if limited to a restricted population, represents an useful picture to try to understand the intriguing re-lationships among infections, allergy, and asthma. The reduction ofintestinal helmints infections did not affect the overall prevalence ofallergy in our population, but may play a role in the emergence ofpollensensitizationsinyoungergenerations.Ontheotherhand,asthmasymptoms seem to be more related to respiratory infection than to al-lergy, and, as a consequence, the improvement of living conditions inthe last two-three decades probably concurred to a reduction of itsprevalence.