In the past years, cases of death of students with food allergies have greatly increased.
In the year of 2012, Ammaria Johnson, 7, in Chesterfield School died of cardiac and anaphylaxis. According to the Chesterfield Country police, the girl had received a peanut from another child unaware of Ammaria's allergy. The girl ate the peanut and was then rushed to the school clinic and was then declared dead at Chippenham Hospital.
In response to this, Chesterfield School released in a statement, "our school division has extensive guidelines in place regarding managing severe allergies."
However, according to Ammarias's mom, she brought every medication for her, but the school nurse said that she may keep it as they have the medications for allergies. There has a discrepancy on whether they really have those medications as Ammaria was first brought to their school clinic before rushing to Chippenham Hospital.
Conversely, just last week, Andrea Mariano, 18, who is a first year student at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, passed away on September 18, 2015 from food allergy.
According to the grieving family, her death was caused by anaphylaxis. It is an acute allergic reaction to an antigen, to which the body has become hypersensitive.
Her cousin, Hedellaine Valentin told Global News that the reaction happened after the young woman ordered "a smoothie on campus." While the young woman, was not carrying her epinephrine auto-injectors, according to Valentin.
An epinephrine autoinjector, is a medical device for injecting a measured dose or doses of epinephrine (adrenaline), by means of autoinjector technology. It is used for the treatment of anaphylaxis.
In lieu with this, universities across the country were reviewed and reinforcing food safety and food allergy policies and practices.
"We know how badly a student death impacts everyone, so our hearts goes out to them," said Doug Dawson, Associate Vice President, Ancillary Services at the University of Alberta.
Global News contacted a dozen universities to find out if the institutions are responding to the death of an undergraduate student, by evaluating their own food and dining services.
Thus, it is the number one obligation of the young people to protect themselves by always bringing medications against their allergies. While schools and universities must make sure they have the medications needed for students with those cases.
