1 November 2018: 

The National Allergy Strategy has partnered with Environmental Health Australia (EHA) to develop a resource hub to assist authorised officers to help improve food allergy management in food service.

The resource is being launched at the national EHA conference today in Perth.

www.foodallergytraining.org.au/resources-ao/

Sandra Vale, National Allergy Strategy Coordinator and Vic Andrich, WA president of Environmental Health Australia (WA Branch) shown at the launch.

27 August 2018: 

Today the National Allergy Strategy Food Allergy Prevention Project was launched in WA as the main pilot region for the Project. The Food Allergy Prevention Project is the first in the world to promote feeding children the common allergy causing foods by one year of age, to help prevent food allergy developing.

While previous food allergy prevention strategies included delayed introduction of common food allergens and avoidance of foods in pregnancy, the Food Allergy Prevention Project widely promotes the introduction of common food allergens. This includes peanut, tree nuts, cow’s milk, egg, wheat, fish, shellfish, sesame and soy, in the first year of life. The new recommendations will not prevent all food allergies but will help prevent food allergy developing in the majority of babies.

Studies show that babies with eczema may also develop food allergy by exposure to the food through their skin. The “Nip Allergies in the Bub” website developed by the Project contains practical information for parents and carers about introducing solid foods and managing eczema for allergy prevention in the first year of life. The website also contains information and resources specifically for health professionals, including e-training courses.

Visit: www.preventallergies.org.au

The National Allergy Strategy event on 16 August at Parliament House Canberra was a great success with Minister Hunt announcing five years of funding for the National Allergy Strategy.

Minister Greg Hunt, Minister Ken Wyatt, Senator Richard Di Natale and Catherine King MP all spoke of their support for the National Allergy Strategy.

Mr Barry Hickey and Ms Jaclyn Jauhiainen shared their personal experiences of living with severe allergy.

We would like to thank Minister Hunt, Minister Wyatt, Senator Richard Di Natale (Parliamentary Allergy Alliance Co-convenor), Catherine King, Tony Zappia MP (Parliamentary Allergy Alliance Co-convenor) and Russell Broadbent MP (Parliamentary Allergy Alliance Co-convenor) for their ongoing support of the National Allergy Strategy.

This is wonderful news for the many Australians living with allergic diseases.

We will continue to keep you informed as we progress the National Allergy Strategy initiatives.

Parliament House Canberra Event

16 August 2018: 

To celebrate the achievements of the National Allergy Strategy, a lunch time event “Implementing the National Allergy Strategy: From paper to practice” was held at Parliament House in Canberra today, 16 August 2018.

Minister Hunt, Senator Di Natale, Minister Wyatt and Catherine King MP spoke at the event along with National Allergy Strategy Co-chairs A/Prof Richard Loh and Ms Maria Said and two people living with allergic disease who shared their experiences, Ms Jaclyn Jauhiainen and Mr Barry Hickey. 

Development of the National Allergy Strategy has enabled the identification of strategies to improve and optimise the management of allergic disease and help prevent food allergy where possible. We continue to increase awareness of allergic disease nationwide in line with our mission to improve the health and wellbeing, and therefore the quality of life of individuals with allergic conditions and those who care for them.

See the media release: National progress in the management of allergies but more work to be done  

16 August 2018: 

$10 million dollars over five years required to continue important work

In the past two years the National Allergy Strategy has been implemented to support the 1 in 5 Australians affected by allergic disease. This important work has involved engaging with many stakeholder organisations, and has been possible due to funding support from the Australian Government. However, with allergic diseases among the fastest growing chronic conditions in Australia ongoing collaborations are key and funding support of the National Allergy Strategy is critical.

“The statistics regarding allergies in Australia are concerning and require serious attention. One in 10 infants now have a food allergy⁴ and food allergy induced anaphylaxis has doubled in the last 10 years,” said Associate Professor Richard Loh. “Sadly, there have been many near misses and preventable deaths related to food and drug allergy. Just recently a young girl lost her life due to an allergic reaction to dairy. We need to learn from these tragic events and implement processes to prevent them from occurring again.”

“The National Allergy Strategy was established to address the alarming statistics and improve the quality of life of all Australians living with allergic conditions. We are very thankful for the government support to date and input from many stakeholder groups.  This has enabled us to agree on priorities and make significant progress in important areas requiring national attention including food service training and engaging teenagers. It is crucial that we continue this ground-breaking work and we encourage the Australian Government to maintain their commitment. We require $10 million dollars over 5 years to ensure that we continue to progress the National Allergy Strategy implementation.”

 Senator Richard Di Natale supports the need for a national response.

“With more than 4 million Australians affected, we must have a coordinated, funded, national strategy and response. The risks are too great to ignore,” Dr Di Natale said. “This is a critically important strategy and it must be supported at the highest levels to make sure no more lives are lost to allergy.”

10 January 2018

Who are we looking for? We invite you to register your interest to participate if you: 

• have a young infant (up to 6 months old) and have a family history of allergy; or 

• have a child with food allergy and are pregnant or are planning to have another child.  

Why do it? To help us develop education resources to help prevent the development of food allergies.

How long will it take? 1.5 hours.  

Who are we? The National Allergy Strategy. Our aim is to improve how allergies are managed in Australia.  

Participants will receive a retail voucher in thanks for their time and input.

This group has now been completed.

The National Allergy Strategy food allergy prevention project is supported by funding from the Australian Government

December 2017: 

Food allergy prevention project 

The National Allergy Strategy food allergy prevention project, funded by the Australian government aims to implement the ASCIA guidelines for infant feeding and allergy prevention. 

A social marketing company has been engaged to assist with the development of a communication strategy.

Focus group sessions with consumers and health professionals will be conducted early in 2018. This project is funded by the Australian government.

250K youth project

A 250K Facebook campaign was recently undertaken to promote the 250K website.  A series of 6 different advertisements featuring avatar animations were the focus of the campaign. The National Allergy Strategy will continue to add news items on topical issues for young people to the website and Facebook page.

The National Allergy Strategy funding request in the 2018 pre-budget submission includes a number of initiatives for this project including further social media engagement, a mentor program and camps for younger teens. www.250K.org.au

30 November 2017: 

Allergic diseases affect 1 in 5 Australians and are amongst the fastest growing medical conditions.

To address this problem, the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology (ASCIA) and Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia (A&AA), as the leading medical and patient organisations for allergy in Australia, developed a National Allergy Strategy in collaboration with other key stakeholder organisations.

National Allergy Strategy Pre-budget Submission 2018600.93 KB

This pre-budget submission has identified the following projects as urgently requiring support: 

• National implementation of the ASCIA guidelines for infant feeding and allergy prevention (funding for the final year of the project)
• Additional resources required to improve food allergy management in food service to build on the work undertaken in 2016-17.
• Additional resources required to improve food allergy management in teens and young adults to build on the work undertaken in 2016-17.
• Scoping the development of a Shared Care Model for allergy to ensure patients receive the right allergy care from the right person, in a timely manner in the right place.

The attached pre-budget submission has been made on behalf of individuals with allergic conditions to progress urgent initiatives of the National Allergy Strategy.