Five-year-old girl dies from Strep A infection taking death toll to nine

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A little five-year-old girl has died of Strep A after becoming seriously ill last week. The youngster's tragic death takes the total number of fatalities from the infection to nine.

The Mirror reports the young girl became severely ill last week and was being treated at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.

The BBC said the girl had been moved to intensive care before she died. Parents of P1 to P3 pupils at Black Mountain Primary School, where the young girl was a student, were sent a letter by the Public Health Agency.

They confirmed a child had been diagnosed with a severe form of the bacterial infection. Pupils were told the attend a clinic or see their GP to receive antibiotics.Schools Minister Nick Gibb told Sky News "it's tragic for the parents" of those children who have died."What the UKHSA are doing is they are working closely with the schools involved and giving very specific advice to those schools which may involve use of penicillin and so on," he said."They will have more advice about that and they are providing more general advice to parents which is to look out for symptoms, so sore throat, fever, high temperature and also a red or raised rash on the skin."It comes after a child from Morelands Primary School in Waterlooville, Hampshire, was reported to have died yesterday.The outbreak has also seen the deaths of Muhammad Ibrahim Ali, 4, in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and Hanna Roap, 7, in Penarth, Wales.A 12-year-old student from Lewisham, London has also died, their school confirmed yesterday, while a six-year-old died in Ashford, Surrey in late November.The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) confirmed last week that five children under the age of five have died in England after contracting