The African Alliance for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (AFRICALLI) is marking World Allergy Week 2026 with a clear pan-African message: allergic and immunologic diseases are a serious, growing, and largely under-recognised health burden across the continent, and they deserve to be treated as essential health care, not as a fringe concern.
Asthma, allergic rhinitis, eczema, food allergy, drug allergy, urticaria, angioedema, anaphylaxis, and inherited immune disorders affect millions of African children and adults. They drive school absence, lost productivity, avoidable hospital admissions, and, in severe cases, preventable deaths.
Yet in much of Africa, allergies still sit outside national health planning, specialist training pipelines, and essential-medicines lists.
AFRICALLI, launched as a pan-African alliance of national societies, clinicians, researchers, trainees, and patient partners, was established to change that. The Alliance brings together members from more than 20 African countries to strengthen education, medical standards, research, and advocacy in allergy and immunology, and to make sure African voices, data, and realities shape both regional practice and global guidelines.
An African health-system challenge
Across Africa, families living with allergy and immunologic diseases face a familiar set of barriers: few trained allergists, limited access to diagnostic testing, inconsistent availability of inhalers, antihistamines, adrenaline auto-injectors, and biologic therapies, as well as food labelling and consumer-protection frameworks that vary widely from country to country. Allergy is too often diagnosed late, managed informally, or mistaken for something else entirely.
The result is a continent where preventable allergic emergencies still happen in classrooms, clinics, restaurants, and homes, and where many patients only encounter specialist care after a severe reaction.
“Allergic diseases are among the most common chronic conditions in the world, and Africa is not exempt. What is different here is the system around the patient,” says Prof Mike Levin, Founding President of AFRICALLI and Head of the Division of Paediatric Allergy at the University of Cape Town. “We have committed healthcare professionals and growing national societies, but in most African countries, allergy care is still treated as optional. AFRICALLI exists to change that: to build the training, the standards, the data, and the advocacy that make allergy care a normal part of African health systems.”
Why this matters
Allergic conditions rarely present in isolation. Many patients live with several overlapping diagnoses across their lifetime: asthma alongside allergic rhinitis, eczema in infancy progressing to food allergy, drug allergies complicating treatment for tuberculosis, HIV, or cancer, and angioedema or anaphylaxis arriving without warning. When these conditions are not correctly diagnosed and consistently managed, the consequences escalate quickly, from chronic inflammation and recurring infections to severe asthma attacks and life-threatening allergic emergencies.
For patients and families, the impact reaches well beyond the clinic. Allergies shape everyday decisions: what children can safely eat at school, how families travel, how workplaces manage risk, and how confidently people move through ordinary life.
The AFRICALLI action agenda for World Allergy Week 2026
To mark World Allergy Week 2026, AFRICALLI is calling on African governments, health ministries, regulators, professional societies, educators, industry, and patient organisations to act on six practical priorities:
- Recognise allergy and clinical immunology as essential care and integrate it into national health strategies, primary care training, and essential-medicines lists.
- Strengthen African specialist and primary-care training, through the AFRICALLI Allergy in Africa Webinar series, in-person preceptorships, the African Angioedema preceptorship programme, and the AFRICALLI Congress 2026 in Accra, Ghana ( November 19–20 2026).
- Develop and adopt Africa-relevant clinical standards, including guidelines, position statements, and consensus documents that reflect local disease patterns, available diagnostics, and realistic treatment pathways.
- Improve access to core diagnostics and medicines, including spirometry, allergy testing, inhaled therapies, antihistamines, adrenaline auto-injectors, biologics, and immunotherapy where clinically appropriate.
- Strengthen food labelling, consumer protection, and school safety, so that families can make informed choices and reactions in everyday settings can be prevented and managed quickly.
- Invest in African data and research, to understand the true burden of allergic and immunologic disease across the continent and to inform both national policy and global guidelines.
From awareness to action
AFRICALLI emphasises that allergic and immunologic diseases require early recognition, accurate diagnosis, and care from appropriately trained healthcare professionals. Patients and caregivers should seek medical assessment for symptoms such as frequent wheezing, persistent eczema, reactions after foods or medicines, swelling of the lips, tongue, or throat, or sudden dizziness, collapse, or breathing difficulty after a possible trigger.
“When allergies are properly diagnosed and managed, people are safer medically and can live, learn, and work with greater confidence,” says Dr Evelyn Nganga, AFRICALLI vice president for communication and member engagement and president of the Allergy Society of Kenya. “Across Africa, that is achievable if we treat allergy as essential care, invest in medical professionals, and listen to patients.”
AFRICALLI is calling for coordinated action across healthcare, government, industry, education, and the media, including clearer food labelling, stronger consumer protections, consistent clinical pathways, better access to medicines, and improved public understanding.
“World Allergy Week is our moment, as Africans, to say that allergy care is essential care, and to build the alliance that delivers it. Join us at the joint Allergy Society of Ghana / AFRICALLI Congress in Accra, Ghana from 19–20 November 2026,” concludes Dr Hilary Andoh, president of the Allergy Society of Ghana.
About AFRICALLI
AFRICALLI – the African Alliance for Allergy and Clinical Immunology – is a pan-African alliance supported by the World Allergy Organization. It brings together national societies, clinicians, researchers, trainees, patient partners, and other stakeholders from more than 20 African countries, including Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Libya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
AFRICALLI’s mission is to promote awareness, education, collaboration, and evidence-based practice in allergy and clinical immunology across Africa. Its work focuses on four strategic priorities: education and knowledge exchange (including the AFRICALLI Allergy in Africa Webinar series and the AFRICALLI Congress); clinical and research standards (guidelines, position statements, registries, and collaborative research); communication and member engagement; and partnerships, advocacy, and sustainability.
AFRICALLI is registered as a non-profit company and a public benefit organisation in South Africa. Learn more at https://AFRICALLI.com or email [email protected].
Media contacts
Issued on behalf of AFRICALLI by Paula Wilson Media Consulting. For interviews with Prof Mike Levin or other AFRICALLI spokespeople, country-specific commentary or background briefings, please contact:
- Sam – [email protected] +27 82 395 2938
- Paula – [email protected] +27 82 659 9187
- AFRICALLI general enquiries – [email protected] https://AFRICALLI.com
World Allergy Week 2026 runs from June 21 to 27, 2026, under the theme “Allergy Care is Essential Care.” The campaign is led globally by the World Allergy Organization (WAO) and observed by WAO member societies and partners worldwide, including AFRICALLI across Africa. Further information on the WAO campaign is available at https://www.worldallergy.org/resources/world-allergy-week.
Spokesperson: Prof Mike Levin, Founding President of AFRICALLI; Head of the Division of Paediatric Allergy, University of Cape Town and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, South Africa.
Spokesperson: Dr Evelyn Nganga, AFRICALLI vice president for communication and member engagement; president of the Allergy Society of Kenya. [email protected]
Spokesperson: Dr Hilary Andoh, president of the Allergy Society of Ghana; member of the leadership and advisory board of AFRICALLI. [email protected]
Spokesperson: Prof Elham Hossny, Professor of Pediatrics at Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, Ain Shams University, Cairo, member of WAO boad of directors, member of AFRICALLI exco. [email protected]
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