Scarlet Fever attack stuns scientists

Huge outbreaks of scarlet fever in China, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom are worrying health officials.

There is so far no real explanation for the emergence of large numbers of cases of scarlet fever — many of them drug resistant — in the last five years, according to a UPI report.

So far, 100,000 cases have been reported in China since 2011, another 5,000 have been reported in Hong Kong, and 12,000 cases have been reported in the United Kingdom.

Group A Streptococcus (GAS), as it is more formally known, causes symptoms including strep throat, fever, abdominal pain, swollen tongue, chills, sore throat, and the red rash that it is known for. It is found primarily in children, but adults are not immune. A total of 34 different GAS strains in China and Hong Kong were tracked, and scientists noticed that there were genetic changes, some of them making the strains resistant to antibiotics. Doctors usually treat the disease with penicillin or antibiotics like erythromycin and tetracycline.

University of Queensland researcher Dr. Nouri Ben Zakour said in a statement: “We now have a situation which may change the nature of the disease and make it resistant to broad-spectrum treatments normally prescribed for respiratory tract infections, such as in scarlet fever. … With this heightened awareness, we can now swiftly identify scarlet fever-associated bacteria and antibiotic resistance elements, and track the spread of scarlet fever-causing GAS strains.”

Scarlet fever became famous in the 19th and early 20th centuries when it was an epidemic among children, but the disease subsided in the latter half of the 20th century.