A school has issued an urgent warning to parents after a Victorian-era disease spread among pupils. Truro and Penwith College in Cornwall sent text messages and letters to parents notifying them that one of its campuses had caught the ‘highly contagious’ infection scabies, reports the Mirror.
In a letter seen by Cornwall Live sent out on Monday, the further education college confirmed they had been “notified that some students in the college have reported skin rashes, which have been diagnosed by a clinician as being scabies”.
The letter added: “Scabies is infectious but it can take up to eight weeks for the rash to appear. If your child has or develops symptoms, that is an itchy rash that is worse at night or when they are hot, please see your GP and let them know that they have been in contact with someone who has scabies.
“If they are diagnosed with scabies it is important that all members of the household are also treated at the same time, regardless of whether they have any symptoms, as they are close contact and are at risk of developing scabies.”
What is scabies?
Scabies is an itchy rash caused by tiny mites. Anyone can catch the disease and it is spread through close skin contact. According to the NHS website, scabies rashes normally spread across the whole body, apart from the head and neck.
It often affects skin between the finegrs, around the wrists, under the arms and around the waits, groin and bottom. Older people and young children may develop a rash on their head, neck, palms and soles of their feet.
Those with a weakened immune system sometimes catch a rare and very contagious type of scabies, called crusted scabies. The main symptom is a crusted, flaky rash that often affects the elbows, knees, hands and feet.
Adults and kids aged five or over can return to work or school as soon as they have started treatment. It’s crucial to to avoid close contact with other people for the first 24 hours.
Children under five years old can go back to nursery or pre-school 24 hours after the first treatment. In October it was reported how the disease has seen a resurgence of late with a growing number of cases being reported in England.
Is it spreading?
In England, hospital diagnoses of scabies shot to 3,689 in the year ending April, compared to 2,128 the previous year, according to NHS data.
Prof Kamila Hawthorne, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, pointed out that although scabies is not typically widespread, the current figures are “above the five-year average and rising”.
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