A seventh British child has died following an outbreak of a dangerous throat bug.
A 12-year-old boy from south London was announced on Saturday as the latest victim of the rare strain of Group A Streptococcus, or Strep A, that is sweeping the UK.
Ruling Conservative Party chairman and minister without portfolio Nadhim Zahawi urged families to watch out for the signs of the disease, which is usually mild but can develop into a dangerous 'invasive' infection.
"It is really important to be vigilant because in the very rare circumstance that it becomes serious, then it needs urgent treatment," he said in a TV interview on Monday.
Symptoms of Strep A are not limited to a sore throat and fever, but can include a red skin rash, diarrhoea and vomiting.
The bug is a bacterial, not viral infection, meaning it can be treated with antibiotics.
Oxford-base general practitioner (GP) Dr Helen Salisbury feared that fellow family doctors would be overwhelmed by worried parents bringing their children to be examined.
"From a parent’s point of view, it must be really scary. How do you know whether this sore throat is just a common or garden sore throat, or whether this is a prelude to something really serious?" she said.
"I know there are places where they’re really, really short of GPs and actually getting an appointment at all is hard," Salisbury admitted, but pleaded that her profession was "chronically long-term under-doctored in general practice."
The sixth child to die of the bug has been identified as a seven-year-old girl from Penarth, near Cardiff in Wales.
Her father said he initially gave her antihistamines and her inhaler to help her sleep. When her condition worsened in the morning he took her to the family GP, who prescribed steroids.
"My gut instinct is if she had antibiotics she would have been ok, but I'm not a medical professional, so I took what the GP said," he said.