100 new pollen allergy patients visit NIH every day

Out of around 600 patients received by the NIH daily, 100 are new pollen allergy patients.

ISLAMABAD: Out of around 600 patients received by the National Institute of Health (NIH) daily, 100 are new pollen allergy patients. In-charge Allergy Centre NIH, Dr Fareeda Ahmad, said this while talking to APP here on Thursday.

She said the allergy centre normally receives 300 to 350 patients daily. However, the frequency increases to 500 to 600 patients per day during peak pollen, harvest and monsoon seasons.

Last year, NIH received a total of 94,000 patients, out of which 40,000 were new patients, she added.

The centre works to provide treatment and allergy vaccine immunotherapy (a procedure designed to produce immunity to a disease or to enhance resistance by the immune system) to patients suffering from allergies affecting the skin, or nasal, respiratory or gastrointestinal tracts.

Dr Ahmad said that patients who visit the centre mainly suffer from bronchial asthma, seasonal allergic rhinitis, perennial allergic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis (allergy of the white part of the eye), skin rashes, angioedema (most swollen lips), and other non-allergic dermatological problems.

Initially, blood samples of new patients are taken and tested for allergies.

If tested positive for allergies, the centre recommends the patients to get vaccinated, a process that can take up to three years to complete.

However, she said that if patients are diagnosed with any other medical complication they are referred to a hospital.

Dr Ahmad explained that allergies can be caused by different substances, such as pollen grains of flowers, dust particles, house dust mites, outdoor and indoor fungi, insect bites, animal dander and excreta.

In some individuals, foods like milk, egg, fish, prawns, beef, mutton, chicken, peanuts, and some drugs
like penicillin, sulfa and insulin can also trigger allergies. APP

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th_, 2011.