What’s behind the deadly strep A outbreak in the U.K.? The cluster of cases has led to a run on home tests and fears of low antibiotic supplies

4 comments

  1. I mean, there’s all sorts of coughing bugs going about which has possibly been spreading in schools and colleges this term.

    Throw bacteria into the mix, and you have virus and bacteria complimenting each other out like salt and peppa.

    Poor kids. Poor families. How tragic.

    The antibiotic resistance argument has been banded about for the wrong reasons I fear. Sure, it is true, it is going to become a problem….

    But I’d wager that on a management level at least, the money saved by applying this notion across the board is one of the merry little side effects of this ropey policy.

    It seems most of these children will have been misdiagnosed. Having worked in frontline HC before, rashes and coughs, sore throats are all symptoms of soooooo many other possibilities and misdiagnosis isn’t a rare occurrences, especially non-face appointments.

    The question is, is this a “new strain” of Strep, and if so, next term, mask mandates should be put back in place for places of education and busses.

  2. Children were not considered during the Covid pandemic. Isolating them from their peers was always going to have consequences. (Even in this did have to happen, especially 1st lockdown)

    This was inevitable.

    And as a parent I am now more worried about this than I ever was about Covid. My kids have had strep before and been really quite ill. Although strangely enough – not when they had Scarlet Fever.

    But, the lack of supply of antibiotics us extremely concerning.

  3. Just to add some context, this article says only the UK is seeing a rise in Strep A cases, this isn’t true

    “A number of European countries (including Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom) indicate an increase seen during 2022, particularly since September 2022, in the number of cases of invasive Group A Streptococcus (iGAS) disease among children less than ten years of age. ”

    Invasive strep is only a notifiable disease in few countries, so we don’t know the case numbers for a lot of countries

    https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/increase-invasive-group-streptococcal-infections-among-children-europe-including

    America also seeing an increase
    https://www.cdc.gov/groupastrep/index.html

    Canada also seeing an increase
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-public-health-strep-a-1.6689292

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