Focus on The Kit Tarka Foundation

Latest TV News Editor, Mark Walker, speaks to Sarah de Malplaquet about The Kit Tarka Foundation. The Kit Tarka Foundation (KTF) was established in 2018 by Sarah and James de Malplaquet after their son Kit Tarka died at just 13 days old. After discovering that Kit had died from neonatal herpes (the cold sore virus in babies), Sarah set out to learn as much as she could about this devastating disease. She was astonished by the lack of awareness amongst the general public and, most disturbingly, by the huge gaps in knowledge of symptoms and best practice in the UK medical profession. It soon became clear that Kit’s death had been preventable and that the lack of knowledge around the transmission, recognition and treatment of the virus had led to his tragic and untimely death. You can read Kit’s story here. After contacting several charities to see if they could facilitate long overdue research into neonatal herpes but being told it was not within the scope of any of them, Sarah and James decided they needed to establish their own charity to help prevent more tragedies like Kit’s. To that end, KTF was launched with a mission to prevent newborn baby deaths through research and education. In this interview, Mark finds out more.