Childhood care centres warned of bug

Yesterday the Hawke's Bay District Health Board told education centres a diarrhoea and vomiting bug was still circulating the community. Photo / File

Schools and early childhood care centres are on high alert after the Hawke's Bay District Health Board warned a nasty tummy bug continues to circulate Hawke's Bay.

Yesterday the District Health Board told education centres a diarrhoea and vomiting bug was still circulating the community and urged parents to keep sick children home until they were fully recovered.

"The population health team are investigating a number of diarrhoea and vomiting outbreaks through the Hawke's Bay community involving child care centres and rest homes, however reports are mainly of a low level of increase in gastrointestinal illness, which is also mirrored by calls to Healthline and has been continuing for the past 1-2 weeks," the release read.

The District Health Board said anyone with vomiting or diarrhoea should stay away from work and sick children should be kept home for at least 48 hours after symptoms have cleared.

"Most people's symptoms don't seem to last longer than two to three days and it is most likely being spread from person to person. It is likely to be a virus and norovirus has been confirmed in some cases."

Ecokids teacher Linda Gedye said the Hastings childhood care centre had taken extra steps to ensure the bug didn't spread after a few cases of children being sick.

"It hasn't been bad. Our policy says 48 hours but when a few cases came we asked if parents could keep them another day to try and keep on top of it."

Ms Gedye said the long weekend, where the children were kept apart for four days, had helped, along with cleaning and disinfecting the centre's facilities.

Te Mata School principal Michael Bain said very few children had been affected by the bug.

"It would be less than handful, I would have thought, that would have rung or notified us that they had some sort of gastro. We've got typical coughs and colds and numbers of kids that are away on that stuff."

The principal said the bug had largely evaded the school's patch and there hadn't been any indication that the school needed to notify the community further.

"When we had as mother ring saying her two-year-old was down and she was keeping their sibling home we contact the DHB and our public health nurse who made an inquiry around the local GPs to see whether we needed to put out anything with urgency."

Beststart deputy ceo Fiona Hughes said there had been no confirmed case of norovirus within the childcare facilities, which included ABC centres, but they had a few children with upset stomachs.

"We've got as strict policy about staying away for 48 hours during any kind of an outbreak. Parents are adhering to that and we're also reminding them about good health practices of hand washing to prevent infection."

The HBDHB said careful attention to hand washing and drying would help prevent the bug spreading, adding people with stomach bugs should not swim in public pools for two weeks as they could remain infectious for that period of time.

Parents were encouraged to ensure their children consumed plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration and have oral rehydration drinks while they were ill.

For further health information call Healthline 0800 611 116 for 24/7 health advice, contact your family doctor or visit www.ourhealthhb.nz.