Immune Deficiencies Foundation Australia executive officer Carolyn Dews.
It’s an opportunity to recognise that people who look normal may be living with chronic health conditions, says Immune Deficiencies Foundation Australia chief executive Carolyn Dews.
“Those people require ongoing health treatments and medications and often their quality of life is impacted,” she says.
For a disease to be considered rare it must affect no more than five out of 10,000 people, says Carolyn.
For some sufferers, they’re able to live a pretty normal life, but for other, she says: “They have constant symptoms, which could be chronic fatigue. This means they would be unable to function properly in a work or home setting.”