Tot with the ‘worst chicken pox ever’ steals the show on This Morning just two weeks after hospital dash
Little Jasper was turned away by his GP surgery but A&E doctors were shocked by severity of his illness
THE little boy who whose chicken pox was dubbed the worst doctors had ever seen has bounced back – to steal the show on This Morning.
Yesterday we reported that two-year-old Jasper Allen was turned away from his GP who told mum Sarah that “every mother thinks their child has bad chickenpox.”
Just 48 hours later Jasper was in A&E where medical staff reacted with “complete shock” at the severity of the disease.
But little Jasper was fighting fit when he appeared on ITV’s flagship morning show – refusing to stay on his mum’s lap and running off to slide around the studio floor.
Sarah, a nursery school teacher, was on the show with Dr Chris Steels to talk about the traumatic illness he suffered and call for vaccination on the NHS.
After showing the horrific pictures of the tot covered in hundreds of spots from head to toe, and lying in hospital, host Eamonn Holmes revealed that was just two weeks ago.
Ruth Langsford marvelled: “You wouldn’t know to look at him now.”
Sarah replied: “He’s recovered really well.”
Right on cue Jasper started to get restless, slid off Sarah’s lap and, still clutching his teddy, decided to wander off.
From then on he wandered in and out of shot, crawling, walking and then sliding right across the floor amuse himself.
Ruth couldn’t help laughing and said: “So sorry. He is funny. He’s obviously feeling back to his normal self.
“It’s a good slidey floor there.”
Sarah said: “They do bounce back quite quickly.”
Mum-of-two Sarah recalled Jasper catching chicken pox just after five-year-old daughter Poppy but said she was anxious when condition got worse and worse over several days and his temperature hit 40 degrees.
She said: “I phoned the GP and said that it was bad and they said they wouldn’t see him because it was contagious and every mum thinks their child has it severely.
“But his temperature was up to 41 degrees, he wasn’t eating he wasn’t drinking.”
Dr Chris suggested the GP should have listened to the worried mum, adding: “They have seen it all but Sarah has seen it all as well, being a nursery nurse.”
He went on: “We view chicken pox as very mild disease, very contagious and something that children recover from. But seeing Jasper’s picture and his temperatures getting worse every day, rings alarm bells.”
He also revealed that Jasper’s reaction was worse because he was the second child in the family to get it and because he had recently had scarlet fever.
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He added: “When a second child gets it in the same family it is much worse than if they get it from someone at school. But also he had scarlet fever the week before. So his body was trying to fight one infection and then along comes another one that makes it worse.”
The doctor also advised against “chicken pox parties”, which Eamonn said were popular when he was young and “people brought their kids deliberately to catch it and get it out of the way.”
Dr Chris advised: “Don’t do that because although only one in 10,000 geta serious complication, if your child was the one who got it from a chicken pox party then…”
Sarah called for parents to be offered vaccinations for the common disease.
She said: “It is very rare that children get severely affected by it, but I do think all parents should have the choice.”
Meanwhile, Eamon revealed wife Ruth once dismissed his illness – when he was suffering from scarlet fever.
He said: “I had scarlet fever one time and I got no sympathy from my wife. I ended up in hospital. I was told I had man flu.”
Ruth laughed: “I told him to take some paracetamol and pull yourself together.”
