TWO more cases of the same deadly bacteria infection that killed a six-year-old girl have been found at a nearby school.
The death of the primary school pupil from the highly infectious Strep A hit the headlines last week while another child was hospitalised.
The UK Health Security Agency has now been notified of cases of Strep A in Year 1 and Year 6 at nearby Echelford School - while a third pupil has closely-related condition Scarlet Fever.
The health body had offered pupils and staff antibiotics following the death in Ashford, where the child died after contracting the bug.
A letter is understood to have been sent to all parents of kids at Echelford, informing them they had switched off drinking water fountains and were monitoring pupils carefully.
One parent said: "Parents are of course getting very concerned about this outbreak, especially as a child died last week.
"It is every parent's worst nightmare We are being told to keep sending our kids into school, but it feels incredibly risky given there are now at least four cases in the local area at two different schools.
"Will our children be safe? It feels like it is a really serious situation. The schools and health authorities are trying to play it all down but behind the scenes there must be huge concern about this."
Senior staff at Echelford reportedly said they had been advised that children should continue to attend school as normal and parents/carers should not be overly alarmed.
They assured they would continue to review and increase their focus on hygiene throughout the school and were increasing hand hygiene and cleaning of key areas.
