17 infected with a mutated virus in Stavanger kindergarten during nine days

Less than 30 minutes ago

–

On Saturday 13 March, one child and two employees in a new ward in the kindergarten were diagnosed with the infection. All children and employees in the department are quarantined. Since it is a question of a mutated virus, the households of those who have been quarantined are recommended to be quarantined until the situation has been clarified, Stavanger Municipality states in its website.

In addition, collaborative cohorts are placed in the clarification quarantine. This means that children and employees in collaborating cohorts must be home from kindergarten until they have received a negative test.

Four wards are affected by the outbreak

An employee was first diagnosed with an infection on Thursday 4 March. Since then, another seven employees and nine children have been diagnosed with the infection. Children and employees who have been diagnosed with infection belong to a total of four departments in the kindergarten. Everyone who belongs to wards affected by infection has been contacted by the kindergarten.

More information on Sunday

Kindergarten director Monica Buvig Stenseth emphasizes that they follow the situation closely and continuously have a dialogue with infection control.

– We are now working in close dialogue with infection control to assess whether further measures must be implemented from Monday. The kindergarten will provide more clear information to parents and employees during Sunday, she says.

Tests more

Infection control doctor Ruth Midtgarden asks the families of the close contacts to be extra careful the next week.

“Since it is a mutated virus, we test a little more than we would normally do, and we have asked close contacts of the close contacts to be extra careful, even if the original close contact tested negative on the first test,” says Midtgarden.