An eighth child has reportedly died following a Strep A diagnosis in the UK. The latest child, who has not been named, was an attendee at Morelands Primary School in Portsmouth.
School officials are “absolutely devastated” by the loss, reports ExpressOnline.
Headteacher Alison Syred-Paul today (Monday) said: “Very tragically, we have learned of the death in recent days of a child who attended our school, who was also diagnosed with an invasive Group A Streptococcal (iGAS) infection. We are absolutely devastated by the loss of one of our young pupils and offer our sincere and heartfelt condolences to the child's family at this extremely sad time.
“We ask that the privacy of the family is respected. We are working closely with public health authorities to ensure that the family, our pupils and staff receive support.”
Ms Syred-Paul added that “as a precaution, we have also been raising awareness amongst parents, carers and our school community of the signs and symptoms of Group A Streptococcal (iGAS) infections, and what to do if a child develops these, including invasive Group A Streptococcal (iGAS) infection”. Strep A symptoms include pain when swallowing, swollen tonsils, fever and a high temperature, among others. The Government has today urged parents to be “on the lookout” for these and other symptoms.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: "We are seeing a higher number of cases of Group A strep this year compared to usual.
It comes as experts from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that they were exploring whether the rise in cases was due to a lack of immunity due to Covid lockdowns. Asked about the rise in cases, UKHSA chief medical adviser Dr Susan Hopkins told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Firstly, I think that we’re seeing a lot of viral infections circulate at the moment and these bacterial infections can come as an addition on top.
“Secondly, we’re back to normal social mixing and the patterns of diseases that we’re seeing in the last number of months are out of sync with the normal seasons as people mix back to normal and move around and pass infections on. We also need to recognise that the measures that we’ve taken for the last couple of years to reduce Covid circulating will also reduce other infections circulating and so that means that as things get back to normal, these traditional infections that we’ve seen for many years are circulating at great levels.”
Asked whether children do not have the normal immunity they would have built up during a normal period, Dr Hopkins added: “So of course, that’s one of the potential areas that we’re exploring. We expect that a certain amount of children will have these infections each year and therefore they will have a level of immunity.
“So we’re seeing more now than we have seen for the last two years where there were very very low amounts of infections seen.”
