The UK government is urging all parents to be especially vigilant for signs of infection in their children after another child died of a severe infection caused by the same bacterium that causes scarlet fever. He is the seventh child to die from the infection, a situation that has worried the British for a few weeks.

The most recent victim of the infection, caused by group A strep, was a 12-year-old boy living in London. So far, the six children who had died were all under the age of 10.

Six children have died in the UK from a severe infection with the bacterium that causes scarlet fever.

Speaking to Sky News this Sunday morning, the leader of the Conservative Party and British minister Nadhim Zahawi, left an appeal to all Britons with children: “It is very important to be vigilant, because in the rare circumstance of getting serious, [a infeção] needs urgent treatment.”

Zahawi added that “most cases will be a mild strep condition, but [a bactéria] It’s highly contagious, so I think the important message to get across this morning is that parents should be on the lookout for symptoms, including fever, headaches, and rashes.”

Bacteria are common, but rare infections can kill

This is an invasive infection caused by group A streptococcus, a very common bacterium that is present in many people and often causes sore throats or small minor infections. It is, for example, the bacterium responsible for scarlet fever.

In some very rare situations, the bacteria can enter the bloodstream and spread rapidly, leading to an invasive infection that can be fatal.

This type of invasive infection, although rare, is becoming more frequent in the United Kingdom, according to data from the British health authorities. This year, for children ages one to four, there were 2.3 cases of invasive infection per 100,000 children, more than four times the pre-pandemic rate of 0.5 cases for every 100,000 children.

In the case of older children, between five and nine years old, this year there were 1.1 cases per 100,000 children, a value also much higher than the 0.3 registered between 2017 and 2019.

The British health authorities are investigating this sharp increase in the number of serious infections in children. One of the main hypotheses under study is the possibility that the confinements caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have reduced immunity to different types of bacteria among children, which allowed the serious infection to develop more easily.

Based on the information available to date, it does not appear to be a single chain of transmission, since the six deceased children lived in geographically dispersed places and had no contact with each other.