Children fall ill during school excursion

HEALTH authorities have been alerted after Carnoustie youngsters fell ill during a school trip to a Perthshire adventure centre.

Children from Burnside Primary School experienced diarrhoea, vomiting and severe stomach pains during and after their three-night Easter holiday stay at Dalguise Activity Centre, near Dunkeld.

It is believed they had gastroenteritis or norovirus.

One 11-year-old pupil was taken to Ninewells and another is thought to have stayed overnight at the hospital.

It is estimated that less than half of Burnside’s P7 pupils were healthy enough to attend school when classes returned for summer term on Monday.

PGL Dalguise said it contacted health authorities and undertook a deep clean of an infected area as soon as it was made aware of the issue.

It comes less than a year after Dalguise was forced to close temporarily due to several schoolchildren and staff falling ill with a sickness bug.

Youngsters arrived at Dalguise on Tuesday April 16 and left the following Friday.

Admission was around £320 for each child.

One mother told the Tele she had to take her son to Ninewells after he initially had an “amazing time” at the centre.

“The symptoms started late Thursday evening and continued through the night,” she added.

“He had sickness and diarrhoea.”

On Saturday she contacted NHS 24 who arranged an immediate appointment at King’s Cross Hospital, where the doctor referred him to Ninewells for that day.

Here he was prescribed with antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection.

She said on Monday: “He is still not 100%; today is the first day that he has done anything outside of his bed – except when I dragged him out to hospital.

“He still has diarrhoea but has managed to eat for the first time properly since Thursday evening.”