EuroPrevall study on food allergies in China, India and Russia

One of the aims of the EuroPrevall project is to gain a greater understanding of the global variations in food allergy prevalence. The EuroPrevall-INCO project has been developed to evaluate the prevalence of food allergies in China, India and Russia using the standardised methodology of the EuroPrevall protocol used for studies in the European Union. The research team have recently published their study methodology in the journal 'Allergy'.

More than 37,000 children primary schoolchildren were randomly recruited from urban and rural regions of China, Russia and India and screened to ascertain possible adverse reactions to foods. More than 3,000 cases of children with adverse reactions, and controls were then selected to answer a detailed questionnaire designed to evaluate the possible risk factors of food allergies. Objective evidence of sensitisation including skin-prick test and serum specific IgE measurement was collected and further confirmation of food allergies by double blind food challenge was also conducted.

The findings of the study have not yet been published, however the authors maintain this will be the first comparative study of the epidemiology of food allergies in China, India, and Russia using the same standardised methodology as that used in studies conducted by the EuroPrevall project team in the European Union.

Reference: Wong et al. 2009. Allergy. Doi: 10.1111/j.1398-9995.2009.02214.x