National Penicillin Allergy Day

National Penicillin Allergy Day is an annual celebration to raise awareness around the impact of carrying a penicillin allergy label and how it affects a patient’s healthcare treatment. It focuses on the importance of knowing a patient’s true allergy history while offering tools, activities, and ideas to help create penicillin allergy awareness throughout healthcare offices, facilities, and communities.

The IDSA Foundation is proud to be a national sponsor of National Penicillin Allergy Day! We support the effort to broadly communicate the importance of penicillin allergy testing to help save lives.

Why is correctly identifying those who are not actually allergic to penicillin so important?

• Inaccurate diagnosis of penicillin allergy can adversely impact medical costs for both patients and healthcare systems: research shows that antibiotic costs for patients reporting penicillin allergies are up to 63% higher than for those who do not report being penicillin-allergic.³
• Patients labeled penicillin-allergic may have a threefold increased risk of adverse events (ADE).⁴ In the hospital setting, history of penicillin allergy translates to about 10% more hospital days,³ 30% higher incidence of VRE infections, 23% higher incidence of C difficile infections, and 14% higher incidence of MRSA infections.⁵
• Correctly identifying those who are not actually allergic can improve antibiotic prescribing and combat the risk of super-bugs by allowing patients access to safer, less toxic antibiotics.⁴ By some estimates, up to half of all hospitalized patients in the US receive antibiotics and up to half of antimicrobial use may be inappropriate.⁶ There is a causal relationship between inappropriate antimicrobial use and resistance; changes in antimicrobial use lead to parallel changes in the prevalence of resistance.¹

With statistics this compelling, it’s important for patients and providers to know the facts about penicillin allergies.

Visit https://nationalpenicillinallergyday.com/ to learn more and how you can get involved all year-round in your local community.