SWAN Hill’s early childcare providers have avoided a gastro outbreak that is running rampant across centres in Victoria.
Statewide there have been 56 outbreaks since the beginning of November, compared with only 19 in the same period last year, with a similar outbreak spike earlier this year being four times higher than the usual rate.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Professor Brett Sutton, said childcare workers, children and their families all had a role to play in limiting the spread of the virus.
“Gastroenteritis can spread quickly through settings such as early childhood education and care services, where children play and interact closely with each other and can readily spread their bugs,” Prof Sutton said.
He said it is important to teach children the importance of hand washing, with soap and water still being the recommended hygiene method to limit the spread of the virus, with alcohol-based sanitiser being less effective.
“Hand washing with soap and water is still the best personal hygiene method to minimize the chance of spreading the virus,” Professor Sutton said.
Despite the peak in gastroenteritis outbreaks across the state, Swan Hill centres have been able to avoid any outbreaks.
Sources said it had been a long time since an outbreak hit the rural city.
Goodstart Early Learning Pritchard Streets Kellie Hawthorn was surprised to hear that the state had experienced a dramatic increase in outbreaks, as she believed that the district had been able to keep itself free from the virus.
“It’s definitely news to me, we definitely haven’t had any concerns regarding our centre, or heard anything from any other centres in the district, so we are definitely touching wood hoping that continues,” she said.
The news comes as concerns had been raised that children hadn’t had a chance to build up their immunity over the past few years, as they had been blanketed from those viruses such as conjunctivitis and gastro.
“The past two years it has been hard for those kids to build up their immunity to things like conjunctivitis and gastro due to the fact they have been so protected from their day-to-day activities,” Ms Hawthorn said.
If anything, the lack of outbreaks had been credited to local parents, as they had been “fantastic” in their approach to keep sick children out of facilities.
“Our parents have been fantastic, with keeping their child away if they are sick, whether that be with symptoms of COVID or any other illnesses,” Ms Hawthorn said.
“It definitely gives us the best chance to keep those things out of our centre,” she said.
