While Covid-19 is far from being eradicated, an old childhood disease, considered highly contagious and sometimes dangerous, is reappearing en masse.
According to The Sun, numerous cases of scarlet fever have occurred in several schools and gardens in a European country. According to the newspaper, this sickness was still part of leading causes of death in young children at the beginning of the last century. But these days, scarlet fever is treatable in most cases.
The return of scarlet fever?
The first cases occurred in a primary school from Manchester, UK. The establishment then warned the parents of a “wave” of scarlet fever. A father was horrified when his child contracted what he thought was an ‘old Victorian disease’.
Infections are concentrated in the northwest of englandconfirmed health officials, class foyers having been reported in Salford and Wigan, Greater Manchester.
What is scarlet fever? Definition and symptoms
Medical journals define scarlet fever as a “classic childhood disease, which is among the most common bacterial infectious diseases in this age group“. The fact that it is a sickness which mainly affects children does not mean, however, that adults are immune to infection.
Because of a contamination by streptococci A, the persons concerned often suffer from an acute rash (exanthema), which does not itch or hardly at all, and inflammation of the throatto which are often added difficulty swallowing.
If the body temperature rises fast enough and the child suffers from what is called a raspberry tongue (also known as strawberry tongue), these are other signs of possible scarlet fever infection. The language is initially covered with a white coating which comes off following a few days and causes red coloring of the tongue and noticeable swelling of the taste buds. In some cases, patients also complain of fatigueswollen lymph nodes and ear and/or stomach pain.
Scarlet fever treatment
The incubation period for scarlet fever is 1-3 days. If the suspicion of contagion is confirmed by the family doctor, a antibiotics is usually carried out for ten days.
It is important to take antibiotics as directed by the family doctor to minimize the risk of complications. To limit the propagation scarlet fever, it is important to have good hygiene washing hands with warm water and soap, and covering nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing.
Possible complications are pneumoniathe meningitisheart or kidney damage.
If the suspicion of scarlet fever is confirmed, the children concerned can no longer attend communities (nursery, school, etc.) and establishments must be informed of the disease.
People who have contracted scarlet fever once are only partially protecteds once morest further contamination. The bacteria that cause the disease can, depending on their strain, produce different toxins. Immunity therefore only exists for a certain strain of bacteria.
For some time now, cases in England number in the tens of thousands each year (in 2016, for example, more than 19.000 contaminations have been reported), but there is no question of an epidemic.
Translated from Gentside Germany
