Young adults with food allergies are telling Canadians in six cities this week what they should do if they see someone having a severe allergic reaction.
It’s all part of a campaign for Sanofi Canada’s Allerject, an epinephrine auto-injectorfor the emergency treatment of severe allergic reactions, and is timed to coincide with this month’s Food Allergy Awareness Month.
The initiative comes on the heels of a new Ipsos Reid survey commissioned by Allerject that found 63% of Canadians would not know what to do if they saw someone having an anaphylactic reaction (a life-threatening, severe allergic reaction).
The young adults, known as “Team Allerject,” are talking to media in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax about the survey. They’re also explaining how to recognize the symptoms of a serious allergic reaction, the emergency steps to treat a reaction and demonstrating the proper use of an auto-injector.
“Team Allerject,” comprised of members from patient support groups, was first used last fall to speak out about their experiences of being bullied because of their food allergies.
“They’re real people, most of them are in their early 20s and we thought it would be great to come back with the same team to talk about what Canadians in general should know about helping somebody if they ever encountered somebody having an allergic reaction,” says Robert Stephens, president of Toronto-based PR Post, which has been working with Allerject since its launch in Canada in 2013.
PR Post trained and rehearsed “Team Allerject” and made sure they were up to speed on the Ipsos findings and key messages for traditional media, bloggers and social networks.
