Abstract

Food allergy is adverse health effects arising from specific immune response that occurs reproducibly on exposure to certain foods. Milk, wheat, eggs, peanuts, fish, crustaceans, soya, nuts and sesame cause 90% of food allergies. Children are more affected because they would not thrive if food allergies are not diagnosed and managed early. Prevalence of food allergies has increased over past decades and these are now affecting more than 10% of world population. Industrialized countries seem to be disproportionately more stricken because there is no prevalence data of food allergies in under developed countries. Food allergy can cause reaction ranging in severity from mild gastrointestinal disturbances to severe anaphylactic reaction. There is meagre awareness in Pakistan about food allergies which lead to high morbidity and mortality rate in such children. Foods suitable for allergic people are rare, even the extensively hydrolyzed formula milk which is only suitable for cow milk protein allergic infants is unavailable in Pakistan. Deceptive labelling of foods make situation worse. Earnest steps should be taken to make Pakistan an inclusive society for food allergic people like international countries such as declaring food allergens a safety hazard in food law, controlling their risk in food processing chain through mandatory control measures and advisory labelling of ingredients for preventing unintentional exposure of allergens to people. Awareness should be raised in society along with collection of prevalence data of food allergies in Pakistan. Availability of both local and imported allergen free milk and foods should be ensured in Pakistan.