A STUDY of child deaths carried out by North-East researchers has found that the risk of youngsters dying from food allergies is very small.

There had been concern that fatal reactions to food were increasing, but those fears are unfounded.

But researchers at Newcastle General Hospital found that youngsters with asthma were at greater risk of severe or fatal allergic reactions to food.

The reactions were rare in the UK, but children who had asthma were at greater risk, according to the findings in the British Medical Journal publication, Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Data showed that, during the past ten years, eight children had died from an allergic reaction to food.

Milk was responsible for four of the deaths. No child under 13 died from peanut allergy. A child with an allergic reaction died from an overdose of epinephrine, which was used to treat it.

As the UK population of children up to the age of 16 was 13 million, that gave a rate of 0.006 deaths for every 100,000 children.

Between 1998 and 2000, there were six near-deaths, none of which was caused by peanut, and 49 severe reactions, ten of which were.

Mixed food and cashew nuts accounted for 16. That gave a rate of 0.2 near-deaths and 0.19 severe reactions for every 100,000 children.

Co-existing asthma featured in three of the deaths, five of the near-deaths and more than half of the severe reactions