- 8th July Marks World Allergy Day
Mojácar Council has joined the awareness and information campaign promoted by the Spanish Association for People with an Allergy to Food and Latex, tonight lighting up in blue, the colour which represents allergies, the fountain on the crossroads between Mojácar Pueblo and Mojácar Playa in front of the commercial centre, one of the town’s busiest spots, especially in the summer season.
The initiative aims to alert the population about the importance of controlling food allergies and highlighting allergies and the promotion of measures that guarantee the safety of everyone who suffers from them.
Twenty per cent of the patients who suffer from serious allergies live every day with the fear of suffering an asthma attack or anaphylactic shock, which can lead to death from an allergic reaction.
People with food allergies often suffer a lack of understanding by society in several ways: food allergy is confused with intolerance to foods, celiac disease, etc., foods are wrongly labelled (despite current legislation), foods are mishandled, generating cross-contamination, children are excluded from activities due to their allergy, experiencing problems in schooling, etc.
The only real way to prevent allergic reactions is to completely avoid the foods that trigger them. Allergy sufferers can react from inhalation, contact or simply by ingesting slight traces of that allergen, which can trigger a life-threatening reaction characterised by the acute onset of symptoms that involve different systems and organs, which require immediate medical intervention or will cause death.
For this reason, the aforementioned association is encouraged to work on the promotion of measures which guarantee safety and quality of life for people with food allergies.
It is forecast that by 2025, allergy sufferers could represent half the population of the EU. Allergies have a financial cost for national health symptoms, which range from 55 million to 151,000 million euros per year.
At global level, 220-520 million people could be suffering from food allergies. Food allergies significantly affect the quality of life of sufferers, mainly children.
