By Martin Banks - 3rd December 2009
We need to work on trying to address this issue
Andrej Kobe
Parliament has heard that many allergy sufferers have to "suffer in silence" because of "inadequate" treatment.
A conference, jointly organised by the Parliament Magazine on Thursday, heard from several experts who voiced concern about current levels of treatment for the 40 per cent of people in Europe who are said to suffer from an allergy, such as asthma.
There was also concern about "false and misleading" information about allergy treatment on the internet.
Andrej Kobe, a policy officer in the commission's environment DG, told the debate that "much more" needed to be done to tackle the problem.
"We need to work on trying to address this issue and that includes reducing the amount of pollutants in the air which can, of course, badly aggravate the problem for people who suffer from an allergy," he said.
Torsten Zuberbier, secretary general of the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network, said that some 90 per cent of sufferers do not get the right treatment.
He said, "Patients face a great deal of uncertainty and suffer unnecessarily."
The cost of the problem to society was also substantial, he said, amounting to some €40bn a year in, for example, workplace absenteeism.
"We have to do something about this and show allergy sufferers that there is an alternative. This is the challenge for all of us," said Zuberbier.
Jan de Monchy, of the European Union of Medical Specialists, agreed and said that the levels of treatment and diagnosis differed widely across Europe.
He said, for example, that about 68 per cent of patients with an allergy in the UK went undiagnosed.
This compares with countries like Germany and Norway where rates of diagnosis are much higher, he said, adding, "Such differences are clearly not ideal."
The half-day event was also organised by the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network.
