Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease

[Guest]

We have a child who has been diagnosed as having HFM, followed by their sibling the following day. We now have another child with the illness.

 

What policies do you all have on this illness ?

 

I know the health protection agency say they do not need to stay away from settings, but our own policies give us the right to exclude them if we want to.

 

It is a very grey area on how long for. Is it only if they feel poorly/temperature ?

 

I kn ow there is an incubation period of 3-5 days. Not sure what to advise parents ?

Edited March 6, 2014 by Susan
Empty space deleted

[AnonyMouse_13453]

I issued an information sheet on Hand, Mouth and Foot to parents. We DID ask parents to keep children away because it was a very strong virus and children were thoroughly miserable with it. I will see if I can find the information sheet for you

[AnonyMouse_13453]

Could only find this earlier letter - the other must be on the computer down the road

 

Dear Parents,

We have been advised by a parent that her child has been diagnosed with what is likely to be Hand, Mouth and Foot disease.

This is a viral illness and generally starts with a fever and sore mouth and then a rash. Spots like mouth ulcers appear inside the mouth and sides of the tongue and then raised pink spots, like blisters appear on the palms, fingers, soles and sometimes buttocks.

If your child has any of these symptoms, please keep them away from Preschool whilst they are unwell. Coughing and sneezing are likely to transmit the infection, so encourage your child to cover their mouth (the current method recommended is into the elbow, rather than hand). Remember that good handwashing is vitally important, as is washing your own hands after you have wiped noses or handled tissues from children etc. Avoid kissing children on the lips to prevent it passing to yourself.

Thank you very much. Hopefully everyone will be fine.

[AnonyMouse_30128]

agree with cait ..we exclude. Very catchy and not nice!

[Guest]

we never used to as per health protection advice but within a very short space of time it got silly and out of hand for quite a long time!

We also felt it odd that we excluded for chicken pox and not HFM as both had blisters and other similar symptoms and like the others said, it's highly contagious

So we now exclude for a week following the appearance of the spots (longer if they are still miserable/temp etc)

Is everyone else finding it's been a long poorly year already - we've had signs up for various things since before Christmas!

[AnonyMouse_1469]

we've not had that in the setting for years................................so I guess we'll all get it now. Same wth Chicken Pox, which definately seems to be cyclical, two yearly in our case. I'm itching already.....

[Guest]

Our chicken pox comes once a year and it's usually around this time. I'll have been at my current setting 5 years next month and there's been a chicken pox epidemic every year at that time.

 

HFM does the rounds in our baby room every so often. We generally say exclude them until they're feeling better or the blisters have crusted over, I believe.