For the first time across the world, babies in Australia – known as the allergy capital of the world are set to be offered treatment to build their immunity levels to fight the potentially life-threatening condition.

A nationwide peanut oral immunotherapy program is being introduced into mainstream care, according to the partnership between Australia’s National Allergy Centre of Excellence (NACE) and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI). Supervised by select pediatric hospitals, eligible babies – under 12 months of age, will be given gradually increasing doses of peanut powder each day for at least two years, to reduce sensitivity.

In many specialist allergy centers, oral immunotherapy has been available in clinical trials, but this is the first time it has ever been adopted as a national model of care for peanut allergies. In Australia, one in 10 infants is diagnosed with food sensitivities, which can trigger digestive problems, hives, or swollen airways.

“Ultimately, we want to change the trajectory of allergic disease in Australia so that more children can go to school without the risk of a life-threatening peanut reaction,” said Professor Kirsten Perrett, director of the NACE and population allergy lead at MCRI, in the statement.

“Babies who have a diagnosis of peanut allergy under 12 months of age will be offered the treatment program as a new standardized model of care across those ten pediatric hospitals, and it will be free which is a really incredible thing. These are public hospitals in Australia,” she later told CNN.

Funded by the Australian government, the results of the program will be evaluated by the NACEin the hope of rolling it out to more hospitals and allergy clinics if it proves successful. Perret said eventually, it may even be extended to older children. “We’re working with children here who have established peanut allergy and how we can modulate their immune system while their immune system is malleable at an early age and that’s what the evidenceshows – that younger children respond very well to this oral immunotherapy approach, both from having a better effectiveness and a reduced risk of reactions.”

Food allergies are a growing public health concern across the US - where peanut allergy is estimated to affect around 2 per cent of children, or nearly 1.5 million people younger than 18 years. Peanuts are among the food types that can cause the most serious allergic reactions, including the risk of the life-threatening reaction anaphylaxis.

These allergies mistakenly identify a food protein as something harmful and coming in contact with that protein can trigger an allergic reaction.

According to experts, food allergy symptoms begin to show within two hours of eating and can range from mild to severe. If you have an allergic reaction, you may experience: