The Chief Medical Officer has urged parents to ensure their children wash their hands regularly amid growing concern over Strep A cases.
The HSE is investigating whether the disease resulted in the death of a child in Ireland, as well as being the recorded cause of death in a five-year-old girl from Northern Ireland. While overall cases of Strep A for this year are still lower than those recorded before the pandemic, the rate of serious illness amongst children with a strep infection is worrying.
Chief Medical Officer Breda Smyth said that proper hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette when coughing or sneezing is of crucial importance to avoid the disease. She asked parents to make use of the instructions their children adhered to in the early days of the pandemic.
