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?

My DGC are just getting over scarlet fever. We are extremely fortunate to have fantastic drs and they were both seen very quickly. Eldest saw ooh and was dx with tonsillitis and prescribed penicillin, though not Amoxicillin and I had no trouble getting it. Youngest was dx by our gp with SF and said it was SF with the eldest after I mentioned his bright red tongue & showed a photo of his rash (I called ooh again and they dx his rash and red tongue as a reaction to the penicillin 🫣). It took me 3 pharmacies to get youngests amoxicillin.

I had to take my DD to see our gp a couple of days ago. Again, fantastic drs who saw her within a couple of hours and she was also prescribed penicillin. I had to go to 4 pharmacies before I could get it. (We're in the South if that makes a difference).

DGC seemed to get over the SF ok (youngest still on his antibiotics) but this week, they have started vomiting and having an upset stomach, so I'm not sure if I should be concerned. They haven't been anywhere but home and my house to pick up any other bugs. Their nursery has had 3-4 more cases of SF this week 😥

I believe I have strep A. Very Very nasty symptoms which are ongoing 9 days later. Can't even get an appointment with GP let alone get tested. I have 2 very young children and am breastfeeding although due to severe illness my supply is hanging by a thread. I shouldn't go to a walk-in or A&E yet I'm still VERY unwell. What am I supposed to do?

Have you tried 111?

Our poor kids. It simply isn’t good for them to be thrown in with 20 other kids for 8 hours a day at 1 year old. It’s too many bugs for their little bodies to handle. This has made me really anxious about DD, we had a horrible couple of years after she started nursery with repeated A&E trips for respiratory illnesses and 5 days on oxygen with a chest infection.

I don’t remember toddlers having all these hospital trips when I was a kid? Am I remembering correctly?

Don’t let the press scaremonger, ffs.

www.gov.uk/government/news/ukhsa-update-on-scarlet-fever-and-invasive-group-a-strep

Am in the USA also - if you go to your doctor or an urgent care here, they will do the rapid, so if that pops positive you get the antibiotics straightaway, but they follow it up with a full culture. I wouldn't rely on just rapid tests myself. The US CDC does recommend that strep throat be treated to prevent the possibility of rheumatic fever. Not a doctor though and can't tell you if the online kits are the same as what my doctor uses. I can say that even as an adult I got strep throat a few years back.

Canada also had a shortage of paediatric antibiotics, I think amoxicillin was on the list. I checked the FDA and chewable and liquid suspension is short here also.

TBH I would be worried about all the RSV that seems to be slamming PICUs in multiple countries.

Article on LBC suggests its linked to Lockdown

www.lbc.co.uk/news/strep-a-linked-to-lockdown/

Hope your dad has a quickly and speedy recovery 💐

There is something really nasty going around that they are not telling us. I know 3 people hospitalised with this flu and reported not being able to breathe. I hope it's not another Covid like situation.

I don't get it either. If the immunity comes from catching these things aren't you just going to be ill the same amount of times but it's been delayed by the lockdowns? So you didn't catch a certain virus aged 2 so you're not immune but now you just catch it at say age 4 instead?

It’s very real and reality is can happen . I’m a very strong and healthy 40 year old. My husband and my 3 year old caught a nasty cold as did my parents - it skipped me. I was induced and all went quite slowly but hey ho I was 37+3 so wasn’t expecting to be ready. My waters went the next afternoon , I walked and walked and contractions started. As the evening went on my contractions stopped and was told don’t worry. I failed to feel our daughter move, asked the midwife to check at 1am. Baby was okish but her heart rate was going up and down. At 6am back on monitor this time I was frozen unable to maintain my temperature, 37.3 at this point. I was transferred to delivery having rang husband and said get here ( 45 mins from start to him getting there) , 3 cm literally nothing. I was plugged into a new monitor to find I was in tachycardia with a heart rate of 150 bmp. Room filled with people and cannulas started to be inserted ( with little success until so access was found). They asked for consent and I was taken for an emergency c section that moment. As soon as I hit theatre bags and bags of fluid and drugs were put up- I now realise I was fighting for my life. My daughter was born with a temperature and a cannula put in her. Antibiotics thrown at me, bags and bags syringe driven in. I was placed on a ward for 24 hours, every other c section mum went home and like them I had moved , peed and was up and taking care of my daughter. The next night my placenta histology came back- Strep A which in turn caused sepsis. I closed the postnatal bay for deep cleaning and was placed in isolation with public health England ringing me to say no visitors for 10 days.. In total I stayed a week with the whole family on antibiotics. I’m sat here at 4.30 am, my daughter fed and asleep, my son has his mum and my husband his wife. I had hoped for a induction as an out patient or a homebirth, I went with induction as I was 40, no illness, healthy pregnancy ( after losing my daughters twin at 14 weeks). This was 7 weeks ago- I owe my life to Worcester hospital and the people in it- strep A and sepsis are silent killers - very scary .

@Cuppasoupmonster My kids are starting nursery in the new year (almost 3 and almost 1 year old) and I'm terrified of them catching anything nasty, especially this.

I agree it's too much for little kids to handle at nursery. My DD has been at home with us for almost 3 years and has never mixed with others. She's had a couple of light colds in all that time so I dread to think what she's going to catch when she starts mixing.

I don't remember kids being ill like this when I was at nursery 30-odd years ago. My brother is 20 and nothing like this was doing the rounds then either.

If you do end up going to A&E or seeing your GPs please mask up (tightly fitting N95s, not loose surgical or cloth ones) to protect you from catching every thing else that's floating around hospitals and to stop the spread of whatever you've got. Kids are coming down with multiple infections at once, just seen on twitter about a toddler (in Norway) who has been admitted with COVID + adenovirus + RSV + enterovirus, needing oxygen as blood saturation down to 85 (96%+ is normal). That's 4 respiratory viruses at the same time!

@cantbeforeal @NotPancakeDayYet immunity debt is a term made up in 2021 with no real science behind it. Your immune system does NOT need constant infection to stay strong, especially not with respiratory viruses, you cannot get immunity to RSV or COVID. Instead COVID weakens your immune system making you more prone to illness.

Sweden did not lock down and they are seeing the same surge in pediatric infections as elsewhere, they can't blame immunity debt since they absolutely refused to close schools.

The FT has a good piece on this. www.ft.com/content/0640004d-cc15-481e-90ce-572328305798

I'm in agreement with this. My little girl has it currently and I'm not convinced she has scarlet fever. Her cough is something else she is utterly exhausted. Her temperature still over 38, 3 days later and with 2 of those on amoxicillin. Something is defo not right

Interestingly, covid seems to make children more prone to chickenpox - or certainly at the school I work in. We have had several clusters of chickenpox in classes where chickenpox followed on immediately after the same children had confirmed covid, and then for the next year, it’s the same children coming in with antibiotics for recurrent throat, ear or chest infections, or getting repeated vomiting bugs. Chickenpox used to be more seasonal, now it seems to come in waves year-round.

@Whalesong the BCG protects against TB, which is bacterial? There are quite a few others too!

Maybe covid can affect the immune system itself.

Because if it was just a case of catching now what didn't go round during the lockdowns, then outbreaks would be worst in places such as Scotland and Wales (and Leicester) which saw longer ones. Also there would be nothing similar happening in places like Sweden (which did not lock down) but they are having very high levels of unusually severe RSV at the moment.

It would explain why it's the same DC getting every damned thing

@RoseAndRose it's not a maybe, it's confirmed that covid 'exhausts' your T cells, which is bad news for immunity and things like cancer. We are setting ourselves up for a lot of ill health in the future thanks to continued covid (re)infections.
A couple of papers on this are cited here
jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/you-may-be-early-but-youre-not-wrong?r=jp7y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

My adult DD had Scarlet Fever last week, it was awful, the worst sore throat she’d ever experienced, her tongue was bright red and very sore. And a rash on her body. Strong antibiotics dealt with it pretty quickly though. Thinks she picked it up from her 1 year old DC, who had a cold-like virus with temperature and cough a few days before (which DC picked up at Nursery). DD suspects she had mild case of Covid a couple of weeks prior to this, so presumably her immunity was affected.

Being thick here, is Strep A the same as strep throat?

Didn't they make one for covid in a few hours? That Scottish lady on This Morning (or whatever) said so.

Just do that again. Worked well so far for the first 4 or 5 jabs.

I guess the parents should stop working and not feed their children? I am sure years ago children played with numerous siblings and caught numerous illnesses.

The news article about very unwell little Camilla Burns is so sad, surprise surprise though, her parents took her to hospital and they were sent away. 2 days later she was on a ventilator. Why aren’t doctors testing and treating these children properly in the first contact they have with them?

My kids have rarely needed antibiotics. When my youngest was 4 she got swine flu, she was out of it vomiting hallucinating delirious, out of hours Dr was amazing said fluid on lungs get her prescription immediately. Took us all day all chemists out of stock. Was nightmare. This outbreak scares me more than covid, its just too quick how sick these kids are getting. Coupled with no access to health care and oh it's just a virus... worrying