More cases of E. coli O157 are being confirmed at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, U.K., with 27 children and one adult now affected.

Three of the children were admitted to hospital with the potentially lethal bug, which can lead to kidney failure. One child is still being treated at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

In Feb. 2010, the Feltham Hill Nursery and Infant School was closed for three weeks when E. coli O157 was contracted by pupils, affecting 18 people in all.

A report to the Hounslow Council contained 28 recommendations to improve future responses to emergency situations, including:

• the situation should have been declared 'an emergency' sooner than it was;
• there were delays in stopping the spread of the outbreak because the school had no emergency plan;
• information sharing between the school and the health authorities was poor;
• confusion over information given to parents resulted in many being worried that the outbreak was not being controlled.

Two children were treated in hospital for the bug, one of which was for a prolonged period of time. The report reveals that the source of the outbreak was never discovered.

The complete report is available at:
http://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=53762
 

An open-air nursery, or forest kindergarten, sounds sorta cool (in German, Waldkindergarten), where the kids spend their days in the woods instead of a building with walls.

But poop could be a problem.

The Secret Garden Outdoor Nursery in Fife, Scotland, which operates in a woodland setting, had been ordered to use soap and water instead of wipes if staff and children visited a farm or walked across a field containing livestock.

The Scotsman reports the nursery argued that carrying up to ten litres of water into Letham Woods where the children play and learn was impractical and that the threat of catching E coli was being exaggerated.

Last night Cathy Bache, the nursery's founder, welcomed the victory over what she described as Health Protection Scotland's (HPS) "very unworkable" hand-washing policy, adding,

"It's fantastic. We can now continue to operate as a nomadic nursery on our woodland site. If we'd had hand-washing imposed on us it would have made things a lot more difficult."

The potential hygiene issue came to light in July last year after concerns about handwashing were raised at an inspection by the Care Commission which regulates Scotland's nurseries. The nursery complied with a request to use soap and water before reverting to wipes and gels last December.

A spokesman for the Care Commission, said: "The Secret Garden will now follow a ten-step programme of measures with regard to hand hygiene. The practice and procedures should also be approved by the individual parents of all children attending.

"However, we remain clear that children at the Secret Garden should wash their hands with soap and water whenever possible to maintain good infection prevention."

That’s because sanitizers do not work in the presence of organic material – dirt in a forest – and are ineffective against a number of viruses.

I don’t know what it is with British kiddie nurseries and E. coli O157, but there’s another outbreak.

Two children who attend a North Lanarkshire nursery are being treated for E. coli O157.

Both children attend the Step by Step Nursery in Cumbernauld and are said to be recovering at home.

The first child was diagnosed on 26 July and the second child was diagnosed on 2 August.