Pup allergy jab

Allergies to cats and dogs affect between 10-20% of the population worldwide, but now researchers believe they are one step closer to a cure.

There are seven different types of dog allergens and, for the first time, scientists have been able to isolate the parts of the allergens which cause a reaction and hope to be able to use this knowledge to create a vaccine.

“We want to be able to present small doses of these epitopes to the immune system to train it to deal with them, similar to the principle behind any vaccine,” said Takashi Inui, a specialist in allergy research at Japan’s Osaka Prefecture University and a lead author of the study.