Strep A infection

[Sallydimebar]

Just heard on radio how 4 children have now died of this within the month . Advise is to seek urgent medical care if worried .

How worried should we be about this infection? And am I being unreasonable in thinking it’s so hard at hospitals to seek urgent care . The poor 5 yr old who was sent away with tonsil infection as no bed was available died .

Are antibiotics working?

A total of 4,622 notifications of scarlet fever were received from week 37 to 46 this season (2022 to 2023) in England, with 851 notifications received in week 46. This compares with an average of 1,294 (range 258 to 2,008) for this same period (weeks 37 to 46) in the previous 5 years.

I just find 6 children loosing their lives since September to a normally treatable infection a bit worrying.

Made worse by having to rely on advice to seek urgent care . There’s unfortunately a massive shortage of urgent care .

@Autumnmoonshines I clicked on buy now and it said sold old. I'll try again over the weekend.

I'm overseas - My 2 year old was poorly two weeks ago, fever, runny nose, cough. Took him to pediatrician as he stopped talking for 3 days, refused to eat anything and would sleep all day, just lying on the sofa. She said it was viral. But the next day he seemed worse so I took him to pediatric A&E for a second opinion and they said he had an ear infection. Once he had antibiotics he perked up. 3 days later I woke up with fever & very sore throat. Went to GP and tested positive for strep throat. So I imagine my son also had the same, then got an ear infection. Its difficult when they're that little, I don't think he would have let anyone do a throat swab.

Thanks, just saw that.

@lollipoprainbow oh no really. It’s been all over the news I suppose. 🤞🏼 You can get some. Will be handy just in case.

I am completely and utterly shitting myself about this. I just cried for 20 mins in the bath. My 5 year old who only had covid last week, now has strep throat with symptoms of scarlet fever being treated with antibiotics (she was so so exhausted and slept for absolutely hours after school and through the night with a high temp so called the docs and got her seen), she's now coughing a lot. I haven't slept for 2 nights since she got unwell and I won't be sleeping either now this is all emerging, I am a nervous fucking wreck. I am so so sad for the families of those poor children what's concerning is the amoxicillin she was prescribed was NOT in stock in 5 local pharmacies. We had to wait for stock to come in our local pharmacy later that day and only ONE bottle turned up. A shortage of antibiotics and this disease rearing it's head is utterly terrifying.

You are the second person to mention a shortage of penicillin...
Terrifying
I hope your daughter picks up soon

@UnmentionedElephantDildo

I’d love to see the sources that show everyone who has had Covid has a damaged immune system. That’s pretty much all of us then.
Yet this is mainly affecting primary aged school children in terms of severity.

With all due respect I’ll listen to the microbiologists on this one. Unless you have a degree in microbiology? Or are a Virologist?

I don’t claim to have the answers so I’m listening to what the experts are saying.

Anyway. You have your views on what is causing this. I’ve not seen any reporting of this being caused Covid infection by in the recent news today. But I have seen lots of reference to lockdowns (and also chickenpox).

It’s a worrying situation so I’d rather not go round in circles. I hope we get more info soon and it really is just a blip and will settle down.

You are the second person to mention a shortage of penicillin

A couple of weeks ago my DD was prescribed penicillin after she had a fever for 5 days and the GP saw white spots on her tonsils. I also had trouble getting hold of it - but she's only 3 so had been prescribed the liquid, I'm not sure if that's harder to get generally.

I don't think it is. Its a really common drug for children and I've never had trouble getting it in the past.
How worrying

My son caught a relatively rare virus which caused Heinreich-Schonlein Pupera. Basically leaky blood vessels, presents as swollen joints and bruising, can cause kidney damage. He made a full recovery but the following school year he missed

Sorry posted before I'd finished typing. He got loads of illnesses over the next year, including scarlet fever. Some of the HSP symptoms are v similar to the 'weird' covid symptoms, obviously I'm no scientist but in my experience viruses like this can definitely lower immunity.
I did read on the BBC site than 2017/18 in the same period of time 4 children died, so this isn't unprecedented and could be nothing to do with covid at all.

I read about this today too and I'm not worried my two have got it/had it particularly the little one (aged 1) who has had an up and down temp all week (not majorly high other than Monday) plus a cough and cold and hardly eaten anything all week. Obviously it's just like a normal cold too but now I'm worried it could be something more sinister. She certainly hasn't deteriorated since the start of this week but not sure if I should be getting her checked??

My son is on penicillin for life and so far we haven’t had any issues getting a hold of it (touch wood)

I’d love to see the sources that show everyone who has had Covid has a damaged immune system

Absolutely no-one, including me, has said that.

No I'm not going to get in to a pissing contest about level of qualifications or research and clinical roles.

I suggest anyone who is interested in covid's impacts on the immune system googles using terms such as "downregulation immune system long covid"

This is also an accessible and worthwhile read

www.ft.com/content/0640004d-cc15-481e-90ce-572328305798

Why the hell is there a shortage of a primitive antibiotic that’s routinely used and prescribed? The world is going mad, Middle Ages

I've been ill all week and got antibiotics prescribed today for strep A. GP confirmed there is a lot around at the minute. Can confirm I do feel absolutely dreadful with it.
Ive been prescribed phenoxymethylpenicillin, completely out of stock at Boots, but managed to get it from asda.
Speaking to the pharmacist at asda, she said they don't have any of the liquid amoxicillin in stock.
But it's not the end of the world. Whilst penicillin is usually first choice for strep A, they can alps prescribe erythromycin or clarithromycin, so definitely no need to panic!
Also just to comment, my GP was absolutely fantastic. Spoke to the receptionist at 08.05, GP called me at 08.15, I popped into the surgery to collect the prescription at 08.30. Took me longer to fill the prescription but only had to go to 2 different places.

This is interesting as I needed amoxicillin to today for my toddler for an infection and the pharmacy didn’t have stock then the next one only had sugar free which I took (toddler hates it but needs must!), I thought it was bad luck but maybe not!

My DC has caught scarlet fever this week. We had no idea and just assumed it was tonsillitis but the GP spotted the rash starting when she did the examination.

We had no problem at all filling the prescription for penicillin.

DC’s school has now had enough cases to get Public Health England involved. We’ve had some guidance sent home from them.

Can someone explain the science behind not being exposed to other bugs during lockdown lessening the immune system and leading to deaths? I don't get it.

I think (and please, someone correct me if this is wrong!) that it's more that in a typical year you'd expect X number of deaths from a given disease. Over lockdown, that disease wasn't spreading so those deaths didn't occur. Now the disease is spreading again and some of the people who would have caught it over the past two years are catching it now (as well as the number of people who'd normally catch it this year), and so you just have more cases and therefore more deaths than you'd normally expect in a single year. But normally they'd be spread out over this year and last year/year before, if you see what I mean.

In the early years of life babies and toddlers are exposed to many germs/microbes and illnesses and this is how they build a strong immune system. By being kept away from other children and people they can miss out on building that immunity. Now it’s not just colds and other viruses but they benefit by being exposed to germs and microbes from others.

You could argue that this doesn’t matter as it just delays them getting these illnesses. Some illnesses are better to get early though - CBV and EBV rarely cause issues in toddlers but can in older children. Chicken pox is better to get at a younger age. Ditto mumps and measles but fortunately we have vaccines for those.

On the other hand RSV causes more issues in babies than older children.

I think what we’re seeing though is that numbers of certain illnesses (such as scarlet fever and flu this year) are much higher due to this lack of immunity. There will sadly always be a small number of children who will be more seriously affected. When you get illnesses in larger numbers then you will get more serious illness due to the numbers involved. So it’s not necessarily the lack of immunity that is causing the serious illness in some cases. More that children are getting ill in large numbers at the same time.

Ah so you think it would have been better for these poor children to have died 2 years ago instead? Or you'd rather different children had died? Not clear what you are saying here, are you under the impression no child died of strep a pre 2020?

Had trouble getting amoxicillin down south too this week for strep A. Concerned about what the non penicillin AB is for this bacteria as I'm anaphylactic allergic.