Audio By Vocalize Globally, asthma affects more than 260 million people and causes over 450,000 deaths every year, most of them preventable. [Courtesy] There is a teenager I still think about whenever we talk about asthma awareness. The young patient had been taken to hospital several times in one year for breathlessness, wheezing and cough, especially at night or after exercise. Each time, the family did what they believed was right: they reached for the familiar blue inhaler. It helped for a while, so naturally they thought asthma was under control. But it was not. What the family had never…