A SURVEILLANCE team is being set up to track any refugees living in Southend who may have been in contact with migrants at the centre of a diphtheria outbreak.

Home Secretary, Suella Braverman came under fire after more than 70 cases of suspected diphtheria were seen in asylum seekers moved from the migrant Manston processing centre in Kent to hotels throughout the UK.

These may include the Skylark Hotel in Rochford and the Park Inn Palace hotel in Southend which is operating under a Government contract as a “bridging hotel”, with capacity for up to 118 people.

In a health protection update to the Southend health and wellbeing board, Krishna Ramkhelawon, director of public health, revealed measures had been put in place to screen migrants.

He said: “With regards to the national coverage of the diphtheria outbreak in the detention centre in Kent, we have introduced a local enhanced surveillance to ensure that we can track any transfer of refugees or migrants from this centre or linked to the centre into Southend or within our vicinity.

“All the people transferred to our area will immediately receive a health screening assessment to minimise health risk.”

The country is also seeing an increase in incidents of strep A, which has so far claimed 15 lives.

Speaking at the health and wellbeing board meeting on Thursday, Mr Ramkhelawon, said: “ The biggest challenge we face is strep A. At the moment there is no indication that the current strains are more virulent.

“The level of immunity among young people has eroded over the two years of the pandemic because of less contact in that group. We’ve seen an increase nationally on paediatric wards as a result of that and other respiratory illnesses.”

Mr Ramkhelawon added: “It’s unseasonal for it to happen this time of year. It normally happens between mid-January and March so we are six weeks in advance of that but probably at a much higher level than anticipated nationally.

“There are 15 mortalities with strep A, compounded by increase in chicken pox. All clinicians have been advised to look for symptoms.”

Councillors heard while there has been a reduction in Covid nationally, since the cold snap there has been a slight increase in Southend, with cases doubling in care homes from five to 11.