(AP) — Twenty-seven states allow or require schools to stock epinephrine that’s used to fight sometimes life-threatening allergic reactions caused by eating certain food products, such as peanuts, or bee stings.

According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, 16 of those laws were enacted in 2013. So far Virginia, Maryland, Nebraska and Nevada are the only states to require it.

Charlotte Collins is senior vice president of public policy and advocacy for the allergy foundation and has been keeping track of which states are enacting laws to encourage schools to stock the devices.

She believes the trend was sparked by last year’s death of a Virginia first-grader who had an allergic reaction on a playground after eating a nut. She went into cardiac arrest and died at a local hospital.