Belfast nursery school suffers E.coli outbreak

Pupils and staff at a nursery school are being offered screening for the dangerous E.coli stomach infection over fears a young girl may have contracted the bug.

It is the third nursery school in the Belfast area to be affected by an outbreak which has already seen one child undergo treatment in hospital after being diagnosed with the illness.

Staff from the Eastern Area Health Board today met with parents from the Brooklands Nursery in Dundonald to discuss their concerns.

“We had a meeting with the parents and we talked through the E.coli infection and the signs and symptoms,” Eastern Area Health Board spokeswoman Dr Lourda Geoghegan said.

“We particularly told them we feel the risk at the nursery was extremely low but we did outline the cautious nature of our investigation and we advised them that we were offering sampling for all the children who attended the nursery.

“This case was found through extended screening,” she told UTV news.

It is the latest in a series of E.coli alerts at schools in the Belfast area.

One child has already been under treatment in a Belfast hospital since last week after being diagnosed with the illness which is dangerous for the very young.

The child, reported to be in a stable condition, is a pupil at the Ravenscroft Nursery School in East Belfast where screening of all other pupils and staff led to the detection of two further probable cases of E.coli.

And sixty pupils and staff at the Cathedral Nursery school in the Lower Falls area are being tested after an exchange visit to Ravenscroft.

E.coli infection can, in certain cases, cause severe gastrointestinal illness and even death.

The young and elderly are most at risk.

Most people recover well without suffering serious illness and some can carry the infection without ever displaying symptoms.

The cause of the outbreak has yet to be identified and the board is working with the Belfast City Council’s environmental health service, the public health laboratory and the Belfast Education and Library Board to try to stamp it out.