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?

Thank you. Yes, I didn’t think of that. Maybe a case of prescribing AB’s as a precaution.
His little sister is T1 Diabetic and she’s coming down with it now, she has open access to the Children's ward so her mum can take her straight there if needs be.

twitter.com/EnemyInAState/status/1598754137650253824?t=S9QMxKo1qtNjR7v0YxtrRQ&s=19

Many Strep A infected kids have also tested positive for Covid. In one school some children have had Covid 4 times!

Same as always advised - ventilation, masks, testing, vaccines - e.g. what Austria is doing

It's easy to focus/blame lockdown or covid but it is probably nothing to do with either. People have always occasionally died from strep A unfortunately.

I got a same day appointment at the GP for my four year old yesterday with tonsilitis. He was fairly mildly unwell but they prescribed him ten days of penicillin immediately, I think it is possible advice has been issued to treat any throat infections aggressively right away, because they usually take much more of a wait and see approach.

I agree I don't think it's lockdown related because it's being replicated in Nordic countries where they weren't locked down.

I think this is either a massively widespread strep a resurgence and the case numbers are off the scale and we just don't know it

Or

Covid has fucked our immune systems ability to respond to other infections.

Yes I understand unfortunately with some illnesses some will sadly die like with meningitis . The message has always been seek fast treatment but as told with Camila rose who was dancing around on Friday to then be on ventilator Monday , this seems to be a fast decline.

I think someone mentioned 4 died with in same time frame with it in 2017 but to have 6 die in such a short space of time another currently very poorly with it , is a concern with toll expected to get worse! .

“They said there were 851 cases reported in the latest week available, compared to an average of 186 for the preceding years.”

I seen above quote that’s a lot of cases so I don’t know why the big jump. Also mentioned a lot of nurseries were open even in lockdown and our primary were just as full as everyone was a key worker it seemed and we were not lockdown last winter .

Very concerning if we are now learning that Covid undermines the immune system permanently. What about the vaccines, do they affect the cells in any significant way? I am not an anti vaccer, I have had all 3 vaccines to date, but I seem to remember that the covid vaccine technology is new and has some sort of impact on cells. Can anyone knowledgeable comment please?

This is an interesting article on the changes in the way the body protects against bacteria in the days after receiving a live vaccine (in this case flu)..

It also discusses the impact on the immune system of having flu and how it can make people more vulnerable to bacterial infection.

The timelines of that effect are not totally clear and it is entirely possible that covid infection may have a similar impact on the immune system... again.. timeline of the effect unknown.

It clearly states that the conclusions should not be used to be applied to all vaccines, but that it warrants further consideration.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mBio.01040-13

Before covid hit, there were a number of research projects looking at viral and bacterial infections in children that had received the nasal flu vaccine and also those around them to better understand if there were unexpected outcomes of administering the nasal vaccine to school aged children.

There was clearly sufficient concern for this to be a topic of interest.. however, I believe that COVID impacted some of these projects which required significant contact between research teams and their subjects.

There may be many factors at play here... not least access to care.

This is VERY interesting
My sons school received their vaccines 2 weeks ago so I expect most schools have had theirs around the same time.

@WhenLeavesFall given how no children under 5 are vaccinated against COVID in the UK because it's not even a choice, and there was little uptake for under 11s, it seems unlikely the vaccines are implicated. Multiple COVID infections, however, due to the government's refusal to implement any mitigations like HEPA filters and forcing sick kids back to school, will not have done anyone any favours.

But no country will successfully prevent people getting Covid. All children will get Covid over and over again. As will all of us.

Are those claiming it’s to do with Covid claiming everybody who has had Covid has a weakened immune system or just some people? If so who?

My children seem to have a strong immune system as ever. Lots of illnesses sweeping their school. They haven’t picked it up and shake things off very quickly. My immune system seems fine despite lots going around at the moment. Surely it’s more nuanced than you are claiming.

I believe most viruses can affect your immune system as you fight them off initially. Then you get some immunity. A few links on Twitter are not convincing me of the Covid argument.

You don't have to aim for total prevention.

But it is worth aiming for reduction.

We know there is an impact on the immune system, but we simply do not know yet what that means.

If DC are catching covid twice a year, they could have a dampened immune system pretty much all the time. Not every child, but each time you have covid you run the risk again.

I think its imprudent to let anyone, but DC in particular, run the risks of repeat infections. We do not know what else it might do long term (lodge in body, reappear like shingles?)

So I think we need safer schools (ventilation), safer medical settings (masks and ventilation) and, for as long as we have one of the worst rates per million in the world, ditto on public transport.

Very low uptake of the flu vaccine in the schools round here this year - far lower than normal. Parents seem to have vaccine fatigue, so I suspect there are more children getting the actual flu than there might have been and that is known to make people more susceptible to getting subsequent strep infections.

That's a good point
I don't know what the uptake is where I live but I always vaccinate my kids.

Earlier in this thread you were stating that children's immune systems have been weakened due to lockdown. Now you are saying that your children's immune systems are as strong as ever. Which is it?

Is flue already doing the rounds? Is that earlier than usual?

It’s so scary my autistic DD9 is recovering from strep A at the moment and it was only diagnosed as I demanded a throat swab as raging temp, violently being sick, couldn’t swallow to eat or drink and feeling weak they told me he didn’t have tonsillitis so didn’t have it - he had them out 6 years ago. Despite the press seeing a GP was still impossible and he was only seen as I am a healthcare professional and phoned the children’s bleep myself it shouldn’t be so hard for parents as this is scary stuff

I believe most viruses can affect your immune system as you fight them off initially. Then you get some immunity. A few links on Twitter are not convincing me of the Covid argument.

You get immunity to that particular virus but not usually other viruses. You certainly don't get better immunity to bacterial infections such as strep A.

This is interesting!

Anecdote form our household, for a bizarre reason my dc was not given the flu vaccine when I had signed him up this year and also last year , they had missed him twice 🤔. Each time, he missed out on being given the actual vaccine while all his ferns got theirs, he became ill with a high fever and cold symptoms exactly one week after the school nurse team had visited his school. We did the catch up session last year and will again this year but it did annoy and surprise me.

In my experience in the school where I work, it’s the same children getting ill with infections or regular relapses of the earlier symptoms, post-nastier than average cases of confirmed covid. These are children who seemed perfectly healthy, just like their peers, pre-pandemic. Lots of illnesses generally atm, though, with very few children escaping them, and some nasty viruses doing the rounds that are not covid. There is definitely more sickness absence than in an average year and a lot more children coming into school on antibiotics for throat, ear and chest infections. Lots of children just generally run down, too, running regular low grade fevers and constantly complaining they have headaches, coughs, stomach pains or feel a bit sick, but which don’t develop into anything worse, but do keep coming and going.

I think I would feel less worried about the invasive strep A outbreak if I felt confident in the NHS and that they are proactive in treating it. But it seems that in most cases the victims have suffered because they've not received the life saving treatment they needed in time. And that is down to the failure of the NHS - excessive waiting times at A&E, no GP appointments, not being diagnosed, no bed space in hospital etc. I live in Switzerland. When my son was ill a few weeks ago, I rang his pediatrician in the morning at 9am, got an appointment at 11am. She dismissed his symptoms as viral, sent me home. He got worse, fever, stopped speaking, had barely eaten for 3 days, and just slept all night and day. By the following afternoon I was convinced he was worse. So I took him to pediatric A&E for a second opinion. It took 1 hour from the time I left home, to the time I got home. Within an hour I was back home, had seen a pediatrician, got a prescription for antibiotics. My son had strep throat and an ear infection, on top of cough, cold, fever.
Im coming home at Christmas and already dreading it because the healthcare is so poor. Every time we've been back and my son has been sick, it's the usual s**tshow - no gp appointments, ring 111,wait for a call back. Just a complete mess.

I should add here in Switzerland cases of scarlet fever, strep, croup are through the roof but the healthcare is so good that it's all manageable and noone is panicking.

@orchid220 I have older children - 12,14. They developed a good immune system by being exposed to lots of bugs/ etc when they were in nursery.

We develop most of our immune system between the ages of 0-6.

As I have said time and time again it’s the younger children- so babies through to toddler years who EXPERTS (not just me) are claiming have been affected by not building up the usual immunity through lockdown. It’s bizarre you think you know more than microbiologists and immunologists but carry on…

If all our immune systems have been affected by multiple Covid infections why are we seeing this more in primary aged children. Why are we not all ill with scarlet fever…

@Delatron - to be fair, if you read all the posts, there are quite a few adults saying they’ve had recent, nasty strep A infections, including one person who said their 20-something dd had scarlet fever, which seems a bit unusual to me, as it is normally children who get scarlet fever, not adults. Someone else also commented on the number of cases in care homes. Just because children are more likely to die and that is what is being publicised, it doesn’t mean strep A isn’t causing wider problems atm.