Aicha King took so much food on holiday to Morocco with her daughter, Lily, in June last year that it filled an extra suitcase.
She packed thoughtfully and meticulously for their five-day stay: baked beans, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, chocolate, biscuits, cake, soya milk and yoghurts – so Lily would not need to rely on restaurant food.
Lily, 18 – who was diagnosed with severe allergies to fish and seafood, nuts, sesame, milk and eggs when she was two-and-a-half – was staying in a hotel in Morocco’s capital city, Rabat, with her mum to visit family and celebrate the end of the first year of her economics degree.
Lily’s food allergies, as well as asthma and eczema, had dominated her childhood. She would become breathless and needed to use her asthma inhaler, which helped open up her airways, if she ate one of the foods she was allergic to.
But she had never had a severe reaction that warranted emergency hospital care – until January 2024, five months before the Morocco trip. Lily had bought a burger at a music festival in Exeter and shortly afterwards suffered anaphylaxis – the most extreme allergic reaction, where rapid swelling in the throat and tongue cause breathing difficulties and can progress to a catastrophic drop in blood pressure and cardiac arrest.
First-aiders administered her EpiPen (an auto-injector that contains adrenaline to reduce swelling and open up airways) and called an ambulance.
Lily was given more adrenaline and IV fluids – and taken to hospital. By the time Aicha and Lily’s father, Michael, had driven the three hours from their home in Buckinghamshire, Lily was recovering.
But it was a wake-up call. ‘Before then, we didn’t think her allergies were life-threatening,’ says Michael. ‘This one could have killed her. It changed everything.’
Lily had always taken her inhaler, antihistamines (which block the effects of histamine, which is released by the immune system during an allergic reaction) and two EpiPens everywhere with her. Now, she was even more vigilant – and anxious – about her allergies.
Already cautious, Aicha packed even more carefully than usual for their holiday. Every morning in Morocco, Aicha got up early to prepare breakfast while Lily, her only child, was still asleep. In the evening, she would cook again to make sure her meal was safe.
‘I was so, so careful with everything Lily ate,’ says Aicha.
‘I cooked everything at my mum’s house and brought it to the hotel so we could eat together. We never ate hotel food. The only thing I ordered was tea.’
But on the last night of their holiday, Lily opened an email with her first-year exam results.
‘She got a first – and she wanted to celebrate,’ says Aicha. ‘I said, “Lily, it’s late and we have an early flight.” But she was so excited…’
Aicha shows me a video Lily uploaded to TikTok moments before they left their hotel with her cousins to go to the restaurant – where they had been numerous times, including for Lily’s 18th birthday, and where she had eaten before. In the video, Lily is wearing a fitted black dress, shimmying and laughing, a strikingly beautiful girl on the brink of adulthood with everything ahead of her.
Less than an hour later she was fighting for her life.
She suffered an immediate, severe allergic reaction to a single mouthful of food.
Lily died in hospital four days later – on June 23, 2024 – with Aicha and Michael holding her hands. ‘For all of Lily’s life, I tried so hard and I was so, so careful,’ says Aicha, through tears.
‘My daughter was dancing in front of me one minute, and the next she’d gone.’
Just over a year after her daughter’s death, Aicha still can’t fully comprehend how someone else’s carelessness could so quickly wipe away all those years of love and protection.
Aicha, a fluent Arabic speaker, had explained Lily’s allergy to the waiter three times.
She recalls: ‘And Lily herself said, also in Arabic, “I don’t want to be killed.” The waiter came back with the food, along with vegetables and a sauce Aicha hadn’t asked for. She adds: ‘I said, “Are you crazy?” But Lily said, “Don’t be silly, Mum, it’s just a carrot.” She put a tiny piece in her mouth and instantly her tongue felt itchy.’
Lily immediately took an antihistamine tablet and went to the bathroom. Then she used her EpiPen and went outside to get some air. After 15 minutes, Lily was finding it hard to breathe. She used her second EpiPen while Aicha called an ambulance.
What happened next is dreadfully difficult to hear and a red-flag warning for anyone with severe allergies travelling abroad.
When Aicha dived back into the restaurant to grab her bag, which contained money and passports, the waiter insisted she pay the bill – wasting vital minutes.
By the time Aicha got outside again, Lily was gasping for air and losing consciousness. The ambulance had still not arrived.
Aicha recalls: ‘She said, “You know Mum, I love you. I’m sorry. Goodbye.” And she collapsed in my arms.’
Lily’s cousins bundled her into their car and drove her to the hospital ten minutes away – but she stopped breathing on the way.
Hospital staff performed CPR, but the doctor demanded Aicha write a cheque before he agreed to give Lily further treatment.
‘I said take my bank cards, just save my daughter,’ says Aicha. ‘But he refused to treat her before I wrote a cheque.’
It was a nightmare with apparently no end. Aicha learned later that when the ambulance finally arrived at the restaurant – long after Lily had left – there were no paramedics, just a driver. Lily never stood a chance.
Aicha, 57, a carer for the Epilepsy Society, and Michael, 75, a set decorator in the movie industry, are talking to Good Health in order to highlight the dangers of travelling with allergies.
‘Neither the waiter nor any of the doctors spoke English,’ says Aicha. ‘Without Arabic, it would have been impossible to make myself understood. It is my mother tongue and yet I still couldn’t get the care Lily needed.’
The family’s difficulties accessing emergency medical treatment echo the tragic case of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who suffered a severe allergic reaction on a British Airways flight after eating a Pret A Manger baguette containing sesame seeds not mentioned on the label.
Natasha, who was allergic to sesame seeds, died aged 15 in hospital in France on July 17, 2016.
In 2019, her parents, Nadim and Tanya formed the charity The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, which is developing ways to prevent, treat and ultimately eradicate food allergies.
After the Kings donated £10,000 raised at Lily’s funeral to the fund, Nadim got in touch.
‘Nadim has helped us a lot by talking about what feelings to expect,’ says Michael.
The most significant of these is blame, he adds: ‘You blame yourself most of all – but also the waiter, the management of the restaurant, the lack of paramedics, the doctor who wanted money, anyone who might have made a difference. We know that with the correct treatment and immediate emergency care, Lily had survived anaphylaxis once. It just didn’t happen in Morocco.’
Around 6 per cent of adults in the UK (around three million people) have a confirmed food allergy, with a study by Imperial College London last year suggesting the number of new cases had doubled between 2008 and 2018.
Food allergy occurs ‘when the body thinks a food is dangerous, even though it’s not’, says Helen Brough, a professor of paediatric allergy and clinical immunology at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London, the largest NHS allergy service in the UK. ‘The immune system overreacts and releases chemicals that cause symptoms such as swelling – especially of the lips, face or throat – itching, stomach pain and trouble breathing,’ she adds.
‘In the worst cases, this becomes anaphylaxis. Adrenaline is the only thing that can stop anaphylaxis, which is why everyone with food allergy at risk of anaphylaxis should carry two, in-date auto injectors [i.e. EpiPens] at all times.’
The rise in cases is thought to be multifactorial, including exposure to detergents and less exposure to germs in childhood, meaning the immune system overreacts to proteins in certain foods.
Other factors may include low exposure to sunlight and vitamin D deficiency (previous generations spent more time playing outside).
Yet despite the rise in cases, another study by Imperial College London, published in the BMJ in 2021, found that while hospital admissions for food allergies in the UK have increased (with young adults most at risk from severe and fatal reactions), deaths from anaphylaxis have halved over the past 20 years.
There are now fewer than ten fatalities caused by food allergies per year in the UK – most likely because of better understanding of severe allergies and the need for prompt medical care.
But the roll call of British deaths abroad from food allergies suggests that they are all too frequent overseas.
An unnamed British tourist died one month after Lily in Morocco after accidentally consuming a dairy product.
Other countries are no safer. Orla Baxendale, 25, from Lancashire, suffered a fatal peanut allergy in the US in January 2024. Idris Qayyum, 19, from London, died from a peanut allergy in Turkey in June 2024.
A 14-year-old British girl with a peanut allergy died in a pizza restaurant in Italy in October 2024. Another unnamed girl died from an allergic reaction to dairy in Thailand in November 2024.
Joe Dobson from London, died aged 19 from an allergy to sesame in Mexico, in November 2021.
‘When travelling abroad with a food allergy – whether it’s a holiday, a work trip or a gap year – it is important to remember that different countries have different levels of understanding and provision,’ says Tanya Ednan-Laperouse.
‘You cannot assume the standards and processes you are used to in the UK to keep you safe are the same everywhere.’
‘Food cultural differences abroad can be huge,’ she says.
‘For example, some countries use nuts in many of their cuisines and others use dairy, shellfish or gluten widely, sometimes as hidden ingredients – such as in sauces and oils. Remember that menus, chefs and kitchen staff can change, and ownership of the restaurant may have changed. So treat every visit, even if you have eaten there safely before, as if it’s your first.
‘It’s also important to be aware of the healthcare system in the destination country and know the emergency number so that you are prepared.’
According to a 2024 report by the Food Standards Agency, half of adult food allergies began during adulthood, not childhood.
‘Adults who develop food allergies later in life, for example to shellfish or nuts, are likely to have more serious reactions,’ says Professor Brough.
‘As do children and teens who still have allergies after the age of ten. This is because the maturation of the immune system influences the way allergic responses develop and intensify over time.’
There is evidence that babies who suffer from eczema, as Lily did, are more likely to develop food allergies.
‘If babies have eczema, particularly early-onset eczema, their skin barrier becomes “leaky” and inflamed,’ says Professor Brough.
‘This lets tiny bits of food protein get to the immune system in the skin, so the child is sensitised to the food even before the food is eaten – and this can trick the immune system into thinking those foods are dangerous.
‘If we control eczema well in babies, we may reduce the risk of them developing food allergies later on.’
Oral immunotherapy is a relatively new treatment for children, where they’re given tiny amounts of the food they’re allergic to over time, with the dose slowly increased, to train the body to become less sensitive.
It became more widely available in the UK from around 2018, mostly in private allergy clinics.
And, as recently reported in Good Health, a clinical trial has shown it is effective in adults, too.
The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation is also funding a clinical trial involving 300 participants aged two to 23 who, under medical supervision, are given a daily micro dose of milk or peanut – using every-day shop-bought foods – which is then gradually increased over time.
On June 21 last year, Michael flew out to Rabat to be with Aicha at Lily’s hospital bedside.
‘Two brain scans showed no activity,’ he says. ‘We didn’t want Lily to suffer – we both concluded that we should let her go. We stopped the medication that was keeping her heart beating and watched her drift away.’
Two weeks later, Aicha and Michael travelled back to England with their daughter’s body.
Aicha visits her grave every day. She wears Lily’s clothes – ironing them, she feels she is still caring for the girl she misses so much.
‘My daughter was my best friend, my everything,’ she says. ‘Without her, our life is nothing.’
Both Aicha and Michael want the restaurant where Lily ‘was killed’ – their words – to be prosecuted and closed down.
‘It may send a message to other restaurants in Morocco to take allergies seriously,’ says Michael. ‘We are not giving up until they admit culpability.’
The restaurant has been investigated by the public prosecutor, but no further action has been taken.
‘We want to spread a warning to anyone travelling to other countries where the laws are different to those in the UK – don’t trust anybody,’ adds Michael.
‘We had 18 beautiful years with Lily. Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would lose her like this.
‘But it could have happened in Cyprus or Italy or France – things work differently in other countries and everyone travelling with allergies needs to be aware that life can change in an instant.’
