Helen Flanagan reveals all three of her children are ill with scarlet fever

Helen Flanagan has revealed all three of her children are ill with scarlet fever. The Coronation Street favourite confirmed their diagnosis on Instagram with a photo of her three-year-old daughter Delilah sleeping.

The Rosie Webster actress, 32, from Bury, took to social media to say Delilah, her big sister Matilda, six, and baby brother Charlie, 13 months, have all come down with the contagious infection. The news comes as parents were warned over a sharp rise in cases of scarlet fever.

Helen, who is engaged to Preston North End footballer Scott Sinclair, said she had been worried that Delilah had 'not been herself.' Alongside the snap of her daughter she wrote: "All the kids have Scarlet Fever. Glad to know what it is after Delilah not been herself and the medicine to treat it."

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Health experts from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) explained cases of both scarlet fever and chicken pox are up compared to last year. Scarlet fever is caused by a bacteria called group A streptococcus and can cause complications with other skin conditions such as chicken pox.

Scarlet fever, which is most common in children but can still affect adults, causes flu-like symptoms including high temperature, sore throat, swollen neck glands, rash and headache. A total of 3,488 cases of scarlet fever were reported between September 2021 and March 2022 in England compared to an average of 8,605 for this same period in the previous five years.

Scarlet fever is treated with antibiotics. And symptoms can be relieved by drinking cool drinks, eating soft foods, painkillers such as paracetamol to bring down a high temperature and using calamine lotion or antihistamine