Allergies: ‘My school’s EpiPen saved my life when I collapsed after drinking ginger beer’

Under current law, Irish pharmacies and other organisation or business can hold and administer the drug if they have the right training and manage the medicine appropriately. So far, only a small number of organisations have signed up, including a group of beekeepers, an electrical firm, a community football club, and several community centres and colleges.

James Kelleher from Cork Beekeepers told the BBC he signed up to protect visitors who may have an adverse reaction to a bee sting. Asked why so few organisations had followed suit, he said he thought people simply did not know about the scheme.

The UK has one of the highest prevalences of allergy in the world and an outline for the UK’s very first national strategy for allergy is currently being considered by medics and advocates from the National Allergy Strategy group.

They will publish the strategy in October 2025 in the hope of shaping public policy in this area.

Professor Adam Fox, chairman of the National Strategy for Allergy, told the BBC that the prevalence of food allergies was rising, leading to an increase in the number of severe reactions.

“After the home, the most common place for reactions is schools, followed by restaurants,” Prof Fox explains, adding that policy makers needed to consider whether better access to adrenaline pens could help keep allergy sufferers safe.

Doctors still haven’t been able to work out which ingredient in the ginger beer triggered Elaine’s allergic reaction. But Prof Fox says while it is possible to discover an allergy later in life – or to develop one – it is “uncommon and not something to be unduly worried about”.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told the BBC it is working closely with “the NHS, voluntary organisations and patient representative groups to consider how allergy care and support could be improved”.