A WESTBURY mum is trying to raise awareness of a rare disease which has almost identical symptoms to scarlet fever, after her two-year-old son fell ill.

She says that while scarlet fever is quite common among local youngsters, it could easily be confused with the rare and potentially very serious Kawasaki disease.

Amey Rodwell, of Tarpan Walk, has had many medical doctor and hospital appointments in the last fortnight after her son Maddox was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, and now faces a three-week wait to find out if he has been left with permanent heart damage.

She said: “Maddox was treated straight away with IV immunoglobulin and aspirin but now we have to wait to have a scan in three weeks’ time then at six to eight weeks, to confirm all is okay.

“I had never heard of it before. It is so rare that not much research has been done into it and we're on edge until we have the scan to see if there has been any heart damage.”

When the toddler first fell ill, she did not think he had a serious complaint. “He developed a temperature and he wasn’t himself at all, very quiet, clingy, pale, sleepy and just generally not right,” the 29-year-old said.

“With scarlet fever around, I immediately thought it was that and that’s why I want to raise awareness because it might not be.

“It wasn’t until he got a rash that I took him to the doctors who said it was viral, which is not what you want to hear.

“The doctors initially thought it was scarlet fever as well and they started him on antibiotics, but then he started walking funny.

“I didn’t know if it was me panicking or if it was something serious and it was only when I took Maddox along to his older brother’s football game that I said to the other mums what had happened and they said it wasn’t right.”

Over the next few hours, Maddox lost the ability to walk and after rushing him to Warminster Hospital, the family was told to take him to the Royal United in Hospital in Bath.

Miss Rodwell, who has another son, Leighton, and is soon to be married to fiancee Russell Dyer, added: “I’m still trying to come to terms with what the disease is.

“Unnoticed, we might have not got treatment in time. You have a 10-day window to get treatment before it could turn serious and you could get pulmonary defects.”

Kawasaki disease results in children having a high temperature for longer than five days along with a rash, swollen hands or feet, conjunctivitis and if not treated, can result in coronary aneurysms. Around eight in 100,000 children develop Kawasaki disease in the UK each year.