Three children were being treated for kidney failure in Scotland's leading children's hospital last night after an outbreak of the potentially fatal E coli 0157 infection. The two-year-olds, who attend the same nursery in Dunfermline, Fife, were in a "serious" condition at Glasgow's Yorkhill hospital.
The source of the outbreak was not known, and the Careshare nursery, based at a further education college, closed voluntarily to allow inspection.
The 0157 strain can be contracted through contaminated food, milk or water; contaminated raw meat; and the transfer of animal faeces. A young child could also contract it from the incomplete sterilisation of baby bottles.
Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhoea, often with blood in it, stomach pain, sickness and fever. For patients who suffer kidney failure - haemolytic uraemic syndrome - most will recover, but they may lose a kidney or suffer hypertension. The incubation period is normally between three and four days, but can be up to a fortnight.
The first child was admitted to hospital on Friday evening, but an E coli outbreak team was not mobilised until the second was admitted on Monday. When the third child was taken to hospital yesterday morning, the hospital was closed.
A spokeswoman for the nursery said: "Although there is no evidence that the nursery is the source, we have decided to close for the time being to prevent any spread." Dr Charles Saunders, consultant in public health medicine at NHS Fife, said it was "certainly possible" that other children who attend the nursery may be affected.
The 0157 strain is the one that killed 21 people in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, in 1996, after they ate contaminated meat from a local butchers. The same infection claimed the life of five-year-old Mason Jones last year after more than 150 people, largely children, contracted the bug in 42 schools in south Wales.
Professor Hugh Pennington, who chaired an inquiry into the former outbreak and is now chairing one on the latter, said he did not believe the outbreak would be one of "20, 50, 100 cases" because the toddlers were suffering from a late complication, and others did not appear to have been affected earlier.
