Infections and Diseases

MMR & Measles

The UKHSA Immunisation, vaccine and preventable diseases division have published a leaflet containing posters, leaflets and other resources for health and education settings. 

Many of the resources are suitable for school and nursery staff to display at school enterances and in traffic areas for parents and carers of children as a reminder to prompt them to check that their child is up to date. They are free to download and also free to order.

Scan the QR code or Click here to view 

National Strep-A Helpline

1. You have one or more cases of chickenpox or flu in the class that has scarlet fever at the same time. This is because infection with scarlet fever and either chickenpox or flu at the same time can result in more serious illness. 

2. You are experiencing an outbreak of scarlet fever in a setting / class that provides care or education to children who are clinically vulnerable.

3. The outbreak continues for over 2 weeks, despite taking steps to control it.  

4. Any child or staff member is admitted to hospital with any Group A Strep (GAS) infection (or there is a death).

5. Any issues that are making it difficult to manage the outbreak.   

Translated Letters to Parents 

The information above has been translated into several languages to provide to parents in letter form: 

• Letter in Arabic

• Letter in Bengali

• Letter in Gujarati

• Letter in Italian

• Letter in Polish

• Letter in Portuguese

• Letter in Punjabi

• Letter in Romanian

• Letter in Spanish

• Letter in Ukranian

• Letter in Urdu

READY FOR A HOT SUMMER campaign is live.

The new IT STARTS WITH ME summer campaign is here with a range of FREE resources available to support your activities and to raise awareness around STIs and the importance of looking after your sexual health.

FREE resources include HOT SUMMER posters with a range of models and informative leaflets about PrEP, chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis and HIV. 

Order your FREE HOT SUMMER materials now. 

Click here to order your resources

Back to school- Preventing and managing common childhood illness

Useful information and guidance from the South West Health Protection Team to help settings prevent and manage cases and outbreaks of common childhood illnesses over the coming academic year.

Preventing outbreaks:

• We recommend displaying this poster in your setting office area which summaries the guidance on when to keep children away from their setting Shoud I keep my child off school checklist poster (publishing.service.gov.uk)
• The Government guidance for settings to help prevent the spread of infection is here Preventing and controlling infections - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• E-bug produce fantastic resources and lesson plans to teach children how to protect themselves from infection, including adapted for pre-school settings, GHLL can help direct you to the resources you need E-Bug : Gloucestershire Healthy Living and Learning (ghll.org.uk)
• And this Winter readiness toolkit from our regional UK Health Security Agency team has all the information you need to help prevent and manage infections in early years and education settings UKHSA Infection Protection and Winter Readiness and Control Toolkit for Early Years and Education Settings - South West Councils (swcouncils.gov.uk).

Responding to outbreaks:

• If you believe your setting has an outbreak the Government guidance on how to respond is here Managing outbreaks and incidents - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• If you need advice or need to report an outbreak our South West UKHSA Health Protection Team contact details are:
• 0300 303 8162 or
• swhpt@ukhsa.gov.uk
• Setting closures or limiting people who are well from attending a setting for public health reasons is only recommended in exceptional circumstances and as a last resort.  When this decision is taken it should be discussed within a multi-agency meeting (commonly called an Incident Team Meeting (IMT)) before being implemented.  Please contact the South West UKHSA Health Protection Team in the first instance.