The United Kingdom Health Security Agency has issued an alert for the increase in infections by group A strep, which has resulted in at least six deaths since September. The doctors point out that it is a very common disease, even in Spain, and that it can be treated successfully with antibiotics if it is detected between 48 and 72 hours after the evolution.
It also appears to be the latest example of a pathogen wanting to reclaim its space after two and a half years SARS-CoV-2 had covered the entire spectrum of infections. Although in our country it is the only rapid diagnostic test present in all autonomous communities, doctors do not perceive a significant increase in infections from this bacterium.
“Without being a disproportionate number of cases, there are more diagnoses than usual in recent months,” he says. Francisco Javier Membrillo de Novalesspokesperson of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Seimc.
“It’s the same thing we find now with other diseases like bronchiolitis,” he continues. Strep is spread through coughing or sneezing, as well as through contact with mucous membranes. the youngest children, having not been exposed to various pathogens in this period, they contract them now. “We could say that now we see all the strep infections from this year and from the past.”
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In Spain there are no official data on the incidence (one Study 2019 estimated 2.5 cases per 100,000 children), but in the UK this has multiplied since pre-pandemic years. In the age group between 1 and 4 years, it went from 0.5 cases per 100,000 individuals to 2.3. Between 5 and 9 years, 0.3 to 1.1 infections per 100,000 children. It also dropped from 4 to 8 total deaths, reports of the BBC.
“The conditions of these patients should be evaluated,” meditates the Asturian pediatrician Belen Aguirrezabalaga. “Diagnosis in the first 48-72 hours of evolution, which is normal, he is treated with penicillin and there are no problemsTherefore, without further information, he believes the deaths may have occurred among children with some prior condition affecting the immune system.
Symptoms of strep infection
“Group A beta-hemolytic strep is always there, we never stopped having it,” she says. The pediatrician did not notice any particularly large increases in infections in her Gijón study. “They are very common throat infections, poltaceous tonsillitis, with pus, very high fever“.
Sometimes it manifests itself on the skin, “it is a specific strain that has produced scarlet fever or ‘carpet’, as it was called before”. These are small pimples on the skin “more palpable than visible, red but inconspicuous”.
Aguirrezabalaga points out that the fever caused by strep is very high, quite abrupt and does not subside easily. Additionally, children’s tonsils become inflamed, giving them a “typically twangy voice.” Antibiotic treatment is effective and no penicillin resistance has been observed. Therefore, she recommends that parents, faced with a picture of these characteristics, use antipyretics and make an appointment with their trusted doctor, without the need to go to the emergency room.
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Francisco Javier Membrillo also focuses on the usual of infection and the rare of serious illness. “Deaths are very rare: there is always more risk in immunocompromised children, but not necessarilyBacteraemia, when the pathogen enters the bloodstream, is rare and can be adequately treated with antibiotics.
The UK Food Safety Agency associates this increase in cases with the reactivation of social contact after the lifting of Covid control measures and does not warn of new strains that could cause greater problems. However, a 2019 study by The Lancet warned by A increase in the number of infections since 2014.
While it has not been associated with antibiotic resistance, spokesperson Seimc warns of the danger of using these drugs for viral processes – for which they are not effective – and emphasizes the importance of managing them correctly at the population level.
We also remind you that it is important to differentiate a mild infection from a serious condition “in which the fever persists, the child has shortness of breath, pain in the chest, lips, hands or feet, drowsiness, changes in irritability or in the level of awareness”.
