Worried about Strep A outbreak

[Beebz]

It has now been reported that a second primary aged child has now tragically died from Strep A (iGAS). This is so shocking and how completely devastating for their families, I literally cannot even imagine the hell they are going through.

Is this something new or does this happen to children in this country every year? I don't remember hearing anything like this about strep/scarlet fever in the news before? How likely is it for primary aged children to become this ill from it? Is there anything we can do to protect our DC's from contracting it? This seems incredibly serious.

@Beebz - I don’t know if it’s higher, I don’t think the surveillance report has been recently updated and I’m not a medic.

There have always been paediatric deaths from invasive strep A though - it could be they are higher this year and something is going on but I’m not sure the info is currently available to the public. It could also be that the media have decided to run with a story and/or there has been an unusual cluster. But there will have been deaths every year you just won’t have been aware of them.

This is actually quite terrifying. I didn't realise how serious it was. My brother had Scarlett fever when he was a child and he was quite ill but I've never even heard of strep throat! What can we do to protect our children??

DD5 had scarlet fever just before Easter this year. Fairly horrendous because I had just come out of hospital with severely jaundiced 10 day old younger DD (who had spent the first five days in NICU with breathing problems).

The key symptom was the rash, it's not a post viral rash, it actually didn't have a colour on DD it just felt like sandpaper. The school had made us aware scarlet fever was doing the rounds so, she mentioned a sore throat and the next morning had the rash so we went straight to the drs.

If you feel any rash that is raised please go to the GP, it's not worth the risk.

I had scarlet fever as a child. Now 57. It caused a heart murmur. My father had rheumatic fever as a child and was in bed for a year. Scary that these things are rearing their ugly heads here again.

The first thing I did (after making a doctors appointment) was google for childhood rashes... SF didn't come up in the list. I was worried about Meningitis before going to the doctor (she was seen within a couple of hours due to it being an unknown rash). This was 2019.

My DS has just been prescribed antibiotics for a cough that won't clear it is rife at school at the moment.

Just to maybe calm people who are very worried; most children get scarlet fever get it mildly. My son had it when he was 3 so about 4 years ago. I thought he had the flu until he had a rash - red on his chest and rough to the touch. The antibiotics worked immediately, he was absolutely fine the next day.

These illnesses have always been around, they’re just getting far more media attention now… an after effect of covid I think. It was 4 years ago that my 2 older children had scarlet fever and there was an outbreak of 16 in one class.

DD has strep two weeks ago, she was very poorly. Lost her voice altogether, and had fever and aches and pains, the sore throat was very painful. Her eyes were blood shot like an eye infection but it wasn't an eye infection. Two rounds of antibiotics and she is completely recovered now. Youngest dd then caught it and it was quite mild, she had a rash as well.
I then caught it, milder still. It felt just like covid!
For most children this will be okay.
It is worth not ignoring a sore throat and temp as dd1 was very poorly by the time she saw the doctor.

I think the worry now is that the NHS is so hit and miss.

a few years ago everyone had face to face appointments and we didn’t have to wait hours for ambulances and 111.

If my kid got a rash and was poorly, I reckon I would need to fight to get seen. (Let’s do s phone appointment first, sorry all appointments are gone call back tomorrow at 8am) It certainly wouldn’t be instant. You really do need to push and push where I’m from, almost over exaggerating or doing some of the work yourself by looking up things on Google.

The GPs don’t want to see people and the Hospitals are too busy. And when You do see a doctor they are broken and in my experience not 100% on it. Just too overwhelmed.

that’s the real worry here. That even if you got scarlet fever (or worse)… how quickly could you actually access help.

I read that lots of antibiotics don’t work on it now due to resistance. I’m willing to bet my house that half the doctors at my GP surgery wouldn’t do an optimal job and diagnosing and prescribing for group A Strep.

My dc has had a few horrible sore throats and a chest infection in the last few months. When the sore throat didn’t clear up I took her to the gp who tested her for strep throat. She said they were seeing a lot of it.

Then dc had tonsillitis so bad her throat was closing up and we had to go to A&E. The next day she had a non-blanching rash all over her body and she was tested for all kinds of awful illnesses but the conclusion was it was related to the throat infection.

I am in the same town as the little child who died and I was shocked to read of their death on the news last night.

It’s made me even more paranoid about throat things now as dc gets them a lot.

@HeBeaverandSheBeaver it's actually good that children were exposed to fewer infections and viruses during lockdown. A study of RSV in Denmark has shown that children who caught RSV later than usual (because of lockdown) had better outcomes, were proportionately less likely to be hospitalized. See a brief thread explaining here. twitter.com/BarclayBenedict/status/1597172291447971840?t=IeB8sjnHlptU4hV45Nbydw&s=19

There's no benefit to being infected, especially with respiratory viruses, so the longer you can hold off infection the better. There's no need to exercise your immunity "muscle" by infecting it.

Note, this is different to exposure to dirt which lockdown shouldn't really have affected.

My DD had strep throat a few months ago and as soon as I mentioned the white spots I was given a same day face to face GP appointment. She got antibiotics and was feeling better within 24 hours. They suggested warning other parents but no one else in the class caught it

Scarlet fever is notifiable. Just before lockdown both scarlet fever and chickenpox were circulating at nursery and we got a letter from Public Health about it, due to the increased risk of co-infection.

I think the main thing is to check for white spots on the tonsils if your child has a sore throat, then see a Dr if they have them.

We have an outbreak at our nursery right now. The health board have been informed, and have sent out info sheets for parents. My ds 3 caught it 2 weeks ago, hospital diagnosed strep but didn't swab him, and sent him home with 5 days (not the required 10) of antibiotics. He had fever, strawberry tongue, took no fluids for 24 hours. Apparently they dont all get the rash. After mostly recovering and completing the 5 days of antibiotics, he went downhill again with tonsillitis. Another 7 days of antibiotics. Others in his nursery room have been swabbed and diagnosed with strep a / Scarlet Fever now and are on 10 days antibiotics.

I'm worried for my 10 month old baby now :( She's got no symptoms yet thankfully.

I'm very concerned. One of the schools involved is where I went to school. It's all very local and worrying.

Paeds nurse here- we see cases every year unfortunately, many requiring ICU and some causing death.

I'm not aware of the exact data if strep but we are seeing a significant rise in other infections diseases like measles which were previously uncommon and also can become life threatening. This is largely due to overcrowded living conditions in population dense areas, increase in overseas travel, and vaccine hesitancy (made worse by COVID).

Still, I would be vigilant but not unduly worried

It is rife in our school. Lots of children getting sick with strep, but recovering well. Not everyone seems to need antibiotics to recover but many did.

Thanks. I’ve always wondered about people in the US suffering from an illness that I’d not heard of here. Google wasn’t any help.

My daughter had scarlet fever a few years ago ( I say a few, probably about 10 now!) Bright red tongue, sandpapery rash, throat so sore she could hardly drink. The GP dismissed scarlet fever as a possibility as it was “very rare these days”. By the time we got home he phoned to say he had consulted with a colleague and changed his mind, and gave us antibiotics. I ended up with a horrific sore throat about a week later too.

@Weightlossanne we don’t refer to it as Strep because we are rarely tested when we have sore throats etc - unless you are unlucky enough to end up seriously ill in hospital. They do test in the US so they know what is making them ill!

We had scarlet fever in the house a few years back, it is (or at least was) a notifiable illness so public health were notified and the school sent out letters.

She was fine, but has historically shrugged off everything so is pretty hardy (fingers crossed). The antibiotics were ridiculously disgusting though and every dose had to be swallowed with copious amounts of honey. She was around 6 at the time and had the rash, a bit of a sore throat and cold symptoms.

Scarlet fever cases in the UK have increased massively since 2014 (with a brief holiday for COVID) and IIRC no one knows why.

We had a minor scarlet fever outbreak at my DS's primary about six years ago when he was in Y5. One kid in the infants caught it, then DS's friend somehow picked it up despite having nothing to do with him and was quite poorly for about a week, and just as he was recovering, DS suddenly came out in the rash. He had no other symptoms and the GP said to wait and see before giving antibiotics, and he was fine in a few days. It's awful that these poor kids have died though. I didn't realise Strep A and scarlet fever were linked.

News reporting a third death now, this is horrendous, there has to be some kind of stronger public health response surely?

Cases are at a higher level than they have been for 50 years.