Acute severe asthma.

Introduction Acute severe asthma is one of the most common causes of visits to hospital emergency departments worldwide and accounts for the greater part of the economic and healthcare burden of the disease.1 Failure to appreciate the severity, inadequate emergency treatment, and delay in referral may lead to increased mortality and morbidity.2 Asthma is the most common respiratory emergency in clinical practice3,4 and is usually a failure of long-term control therapy. Several guidelines have been written for the management of acute severe asthma, however these guidelines may not have taken into consideration resource-poor areas like sub-Saharan Africa. There is a need for these guidelines to be reviewed and adapted for use in these regions of the world.