During the 80ies, natural rubber latex (NRL), particularly for health workers wearing powdered NRL gloves, became the main causes of occupational allergy and asthma. Increased NRL awareness and application of scientific results to intervention methods have almost eliminated this health issue. This article will summarise the latest knowledge of allergens, their use in diagnostics, prevailing NRL allergy data and the preventive status of the allergens. While recent findings have shown that preventive interventions have lowered NRL allergies in high-income countries, this still doesn’t matter globally. For latex allergy diagnosis, it is critical for reliable resources to be accessible for recombinant allergens because NRL prick test extracts and powdered latex gloves are no longer widely available in many European and United States countries for testing bronchial challenges, which contribute to a deficiency in diagnostic instruments. Since latex is ideal as a raw material for gloves with good properties, substitutes are found that contain slightly smaller proteins, and no latex proteins are cross-reactive.
There should still be a consciousness of the risk of sensitisation related to the use of latex gloves at all workplaces.
