2024-08-01 02:07:43
(ANSA) – ROME, JULY 31 – Australia is the first country to adopt a national program to treat children with peanut allergy, a potentially fatal condition, by administering a daily dose of peanut powder with the aim of developing tolerance to the allergen. The treatment, which will be offered free of charge to children under 12 months through 10 public pediatric hospitals around the country, involves the administration of carefully timed doses of the powder at home. And it represents a radical change in the way the condition is managed, in a country where children have the highest rates of food allergies in the world, which are estimated to affect one in ten.
National Allergy Centre of Excellence director, paediatric allergist Kirsten Perrett, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the oral immunotherapy program will help hundreds of children develop tolerance and potentially remission. Peanut allergy, a life-threatening condition requiring hospitalisation, affects 3.1 per cent of Australian children by 12 months and is the most common food allergy among school-aged children. While most children outgrow allergies to cow’s milk, egg, wheat and soya, only one in three children with peanut allergy outgrow it by the age of 10. (ANSA).
2024-08-01 02:07:43