Allergies are a growing safety and public health concern.
The symptoms of Allergy is when your immune system reacts to a foreign substance, called an allergen. Such symptom of allergy can be triggered when you eat, inhale, inject something into your body or touch an animal (fur, feather, or hairs). This reaction could cause coughing, sneezing, hives, rashes, itchy eyes, a runny nose and a scratchy throat. In severe cases, it can cause low blood pressure, breathing trouble, asthma attacks and even death.
Children versus Adults:
Allergy tends to be more common in children compared to adults, with asthma, allergic rhinitis, eczema and food allergy comprising a significant proportion of the workload doctors have to deal with in primary care and hospital paediatric departments.
Allergies affect an estimated 8% of children Wordlwide.
1 out of 13 children are concerns about allergies that can range from food, to pollen or animals.
It is reported that worldwide, approximately:
Allergies in Singapore:
According to Pacific Prime, 13.1% of people in Singapore suffer from allergic rhinitis.
Shellfish is the most common food allergen in Singapore maybe due to its high consumption.
However, fish, also eaten abundantly in Singapore, is a rare allergen here.
Allergy to egg and cow’s milk, despite their high consumption worldwide, is comparatively lower in Singapore than in the West.
The reverse is true of peanut allergy, which is epidemic in the West compared to Asia.
However, the pattern of food allergy in Singapore appears to have changed over the last decade, with peanut allergy increasing in prevalence and being the most common cause of anaphylaxis in Singaporean children now.
Fitivate explains the most common Allergies in Children
In Collaboration with Fitivate!
Wellnex, the leading Health Prevention & Awareness Platform.