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LAST UPDATE | 6 Dec 2022
THE HSE IS investigating if a four-year-old child has died from Strep A in Ireland.
Dr Eamon O’Moore of the HSE’s National Health Protection told RTÉ’s News at One that while the cause of death in the child has not yet been officially confirmed, Strep A is being “actively investigated” as a potential cause of death.
There have been a total of 55 confirmed cases of invasive Strep A confirmed in Ireland so far, according to O’Moore. He said one around one third of these cases were in children. Two deaths of older people have been confirmed to be linked to Strep A, the doctor said.
He added that it is “inevitable” that there will be an increase in the number of cases of Strep A across the nation.
The doctor said the child’s death occurred in the Area A region which includes parts of north Dublin as well as the northeast of the country.
Strep A infections are usually mild and treatable with antibiotics but people can become very ill, and develop scarlet fever.
The fever causes a rash and flu-like symptoms. Rarely, the infection can lead to invasive group A streptococcal infection or iGAS, which can be fatal.
Case in the North
Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that a five-year-old girl in the North has died from an illness linked to the bacterial infection Strep A.
The young girl became ill last week and was receiving treatment at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.
The girl was a pupil of Black Mountain Primary School. The Public Health Agency (PHA) sent a letter to parents at the school stating that one of the pupils had a severe form of Strep A, and children were asked to attend a doctor’s clinic and to take a preventative course of antibiotics.
The girl had been in intensive care since falling severely ill, she passed away on Monday.
SDLP West Belfast representative Paul Doherty said the entire community has been devastated by her death.
“There has been an outpouring of grief right across this area after news broke on Monday evening of the passing of a five-year-old child. This is a devastating loss that has been felt throughout our community and we have seen a huge response to support the family affected.
“I’m on the ground in this area every day and there is a real sense of disbelief that this has happened, particularly at this time of year when so many families are looking forward to Christmas with their children,” he said.
Doherty also expressed his support for the staff and pupils at Black Mountain Primary School, and stressed the importance of them now receiving support for the coming months.
The school is now being deep-cleaned, and local authorities are liaising with staff to take preventative measures. An open day that was due to take place at the school has been cancelled.
The news comes as schools across the UK have been on high alert due to a rise in Strep A related illnesses.
Eight other children have died from a form of Strep A in England and Wales.
Last week the public in Northern Ireland was urged to be be aware of Strep A and scarlet fever symptoms by the Public Health Agency.
It said that clusters of scarlet fever have been reported at schools in Antrim, Belfast, Bangor and Craigavon.
A UK Government minister has suggested the possibility of giving to all children at schools affected by Strep A.
Schools Minister Nick Glibb said that the UK Health and Security Agency is working closely with schools to provide advice to parents.
They key signs of a Strep A infection to look out for are a sore throat, fever, high temperature and a red or raised rash on the skin.
- With reporting by Garreth MacNamee
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Short answer NO. I’m doing computers in college, 100 in the class, 4 women. And anyway, genders shouldn’t come into play with a shortage
This is what annoys me about feminism. They are demanding equal opportunities and pay which is fair enough. Young women now have very opportunity to do IT but they refuse. How can they then demand equal pay if they don’t have skills with value.?
Also they gossip too much
As someone who has 16 years professional IT experience, I don’t get the demand to incorporate it into schools.
If there are resources to be invested, spend them on getting more kids to do honours maths and at getting those who do it better grades. Working with that background, third-level and industry can turn someone into a decent IT professional.
The big danger with school courses is that they can focus on technologies that will be irrelevant a decade later when the pupil join the work force.
Correct re maths. The minister declared last week that honours maths should be an entry requirement for primary teaching. A bit extreme, I think. But it should certainly be the case for secondary. Commerce, Arts and Science graduates make up the majority of secondary maths teacher. They need to financially incentify maths and engineering graduates to teach. Pay them more.
Brian McCraith of DCU made the point that kids don’t survive IT courses due to lack of grounding in schools. It’s easier to point the finger of blame that to change the way a course is delivered. I think both need to change. I see eastern European kids coming here, who have a competency in basics because of computing subjects in schools, get on better than Irish kids.
I believe all 3 need to change. Better math tuition schools, introduction of IT as a leaving cert subject, and for 3rd level courses to become more sympathetic of the lack of basic understanding of their candidates (don’t just blame schools, work harder with what you’ve got).
Chris, I take your point, but you can currently do a Leaving Cert exam in Hebrew or Classical Studies amongst other obscure subjects and you can still do metalwork at Junior level. Surely there should be room for some IT exam, it would introduce a lot more young people to the idea of Tech as a career as well as a social activity.
Cormac, a huge majority of science graduates have maths in their degrees, especially physics graduates. My degree is physics and maths. They go hand in hand and I’d bet possibly all of the physics graduates who are teaching have maths to degree level. If you want a maths teacher at LC level then hire a maths graduate and not an engineer. If you want someone to teach technology or engineering then hire an engineering graduate. The problem is and you are right about this, is a lot of maths teachers may only have done a year or two of maths at Uni as part of their business or arts degree.
Gary, I said the majority. You are an exception. A physics and maths degree may be closer to or even higher than the level of maths of an engineer. Main stream science and commerce students do maths that is not as high as leaving cert maths and these graduates teach maths in schools.
The point I was making is that the majority of maths teachers are under qualified. Lack a confident understanding.
Every engineer has a high understanding of maths.
Women can do IT but have no interest in it. Men will spend hours tweaking and tinkering with machines just to get a tiny improvement in performance whilst most women don’t even notice a problem with a machine until it comes to a complete halt.
There will always be women who will be the exception and there should not be any barriers to women doing any Job but it has to be recognised lack of women in IT is not a problem for any of us, the same as lack of men in female dominated professions isn’t a problem.
Agreed Nimby . Having taken honors maths & physics for the L .C. I headed off to do computer programming in u.l. but hated it! I just found it so tedious. It’s not that I couldn’t do it I just didn’t like it & switched to teaching which I’ve been doing for 16 yrs now & love every day of it.
NimbY, if you had bothered to actually read the article rather than trOtting out sexist stereotypes, yoU will see that the article sAys that most “of the women woRking in IrEland’s the tech sector “fell into” the career”. Now, maybe, if you’d taken two minutes to reAd this sentenCe and actually notice what it means, you woUld realise that the reason there are so few women in tech is because it is never preseNted to them as a career opTion. It is considered by many to be a “boys subject” or “male career path” and that in itself is a barrier to women having the opportunity to get involved in the profession.
IT courses in colleges in Silicone Valley have 50/50 gender mix. Studies show that kids are influenced by the roll model of their parents. Often both parents work in technology fields there. Time may eventually level it here too as the industry grows.
However the skills shortage in Ireland could be addressed by increasing the intensity of repetitive tuition and revision in college courses for the majority who don’t get coding straight away. A maximum of 20% of any IT class simply get coding very naturally and go on to careers in software. The other 80% struggle, but colleges could do a lot more to make sure those kids get more tutorials at a slower pace until they get the logic too. It’s not that they can’t do it, they just need longer. Coding is always taught at the pace of the fastest kids. So many computer science graduates hate coding because they were left behind during training.
Very true coding ain’t easy but if your determined to master it you will
I have worked in Software for a long time. My partner works in IT as well & we have both spent a fair bit of time on the West coast. There is a big difference between the workplaces here and those in San Francisco & Silicon Valley. The US workplaces are a lot more gender diverse. And it’s not just engineers, there are noticeably more women in Senior Management roles as well. My employer did a software deal with a large bank recently, 20,000 employees, where the CEO, the COO and the CTO were all women. You wouldn’t see that in Ireland I think.
Cornell or one of these other top ranked colleges launched this Blitz to get more female students into Computer Science. It succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations and within a few years the percentage of females on the course had gone from 4% to 45%.
It’s not industry sexism that is the cause of all this , more society’s attitudes. There’s a belief out there amongst parents, teachers and Irish society in general that women & girls should favour the likes of Biology, Home Ec and Primary School Teaching. And not bother their heads with stuff like Engineering or Maths as those are for boys. Load of rubbish of course, especially considering that women do better in Leaving Cert maths and sciences every year.
Where on the West coast were you Paddy, Galway or Mayo ? It’s beautiful over there …
Ha ha! :-) well as it happens I would be a big fan of irelands west coast as well. Beautiful part of the world …
This is sexist nonsense plain and simple…if we have a shortage of skilled IT workers then surely we need to train more kids in IT? I really fail to understand how gender figures in this simple equation.
CTRL ALT DELETE
Ctrl + Shift + Esc
Same thing but one hand ;-)
Ahh a one-handed typist !!!
The skills shortage has nothing to do with woman or the lack there of.
The audit carried out by fastrack to IT ( FIT ) was held in conjunction with employers and found there was a shortage of network engineers. There has since been a plan of action through training put in place that is open to men and women and in my opinion either sex is capable of doing the job once qualified.
I have a degree in IT and a diploma in web design and another in server infrastructure, yet all of these jobs require years of experience. That’s another big problem right there, how can I get experience if you won’t give me any?? And if anyone brings up the job bridge scheme I’ll loose the plot
I work in a large IT company and there are plenty of women there, although mostly sitting in the canteen drinking posy coffee and moaning about discrimination.
I just don’t get IT!
I teach computer systems. .I have one lass in the class.. in my son’s first year..only one class is doing IT..so out 100 students..only 20 will have an understanding…
What a degrading headline.
Yes a generalisation, and probably not as true nowadays as what it used to be BUT:
Women and IT do not mix well
Why do you need a ‘degree’ to work in a call centre?
This explains it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w
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