UK parents raise awareness after baby son dies of cold sore virus at 13 days old

The parents of a UK baby who died at just 13 days old after contracting the ‘cold sore virus’ want other parents to be aware of the dangers of the infection.

Sarah Higson and James de Malplaquet set up the Kit Tarka Foundation earlier this year to raise awareness of the disease that claimed the life of their son, Kit, in September 2017.

As the organisation’s website explains, Kit had been born at 39 weeks and was immediately taken into special care, where he remained for six days due to low blood sugar.

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However, the trio returned the following day when Kit was struggling to feed and properly wake up. 

Though he’d been on antibiotics while in special care, doctors suspected a bacterial infection, but did not test for a viral one.

On the twelfth day, with his condition worsening, Kit was rushed to a London hospital via ambulance. Despite the efforts of intensive care staff to save him, he died the next morning.

“Standing by helpless as a doctor performed CPR on our baby's tiny swollen and bleeding body is a memory which will haunt us forever,” Higson and de Malplaquet write.

The day after Kit’s death, blood tests confirm he’d contracted herpes simplex 1.