Australia is often referred to as the “allergy capital of the world,” where one in ten infants is diagnosed with food sensitivities and allergies. The most common is peanut allergy which some 3% of Australian infants will develop by 12 months, and only 20-25% of them will outgrow it over time.
To combat this scourge, babies with peanut allergy in Australia will be offered an oral immunotherapy treatment (OIT) in the world’s first such nationwide program.
Supervised at select pediatric hospitals, eligible babies will be given gradually increasing doses of peanut powder daily for at least two years to reduce their sensitivity and build tolerance to peanut exposure. The treatment will be offered free of charge.
Said Ged Kearney, Assistant Minister for Health:
[This] might be the game changer we have all wanted to stop this terrible allergy in its tracks.
In some cases, [the threshold] might be so high that they can eat peanut in their diet freely, for others it might raise it to a level where accidental exposures wouldn’t result in an allergic reaction.
“Ultimately, we want to change the trajectory of allergic disease in Australia so that more children can go to school without the risk of a life-threatening peanut reaction,” said Professor Kirsten Perrett, Director of the National Allergy Centre of Excellence (NACE).
NACE will evaluate the programme for both effectiveness and safety with the hope of extending it to more hospitals, and potentially other food allergies.
An estimated 33 million Americans are coping with food allergies, and early exposure to allergens in the first few months is recognized as a way to help babies avoid developing those allergies in the first place. But for infants that have already developed peanut allergy, OIT could be a game-changer.
Should the US adopt a similar nationwide program, free of charge? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Why is the US always so far behind other European Countries in medical treatments .
We have many children/people with this peanut allergy and many other food allergies.
A program designed to desensitize them , especially children would be astounding.