Strep A Being Investigated as Factor in 4-Year-Old Irish Child’s Death

Bottles of antibiotics line a shelf at a Publix Supermarket pharmacy in Miami, Fla., on Aug. 7, 2007. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

An investigation is being carried out into the death of a child in Ireland to see if it is linked to strep A bacterial infection.

On Wednesday, Dr. Eamonn O’Moore, director for national health protection at the HSE and the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), said that strep A could be linked to the 4-year-old child’s death, though it hasn’t been confirmed.

Scarlet fever is caused by a bacteria called Group A streptococci, which also causes other respiratory and skin infections such as strep throat and impetigo. On some rare occasions, it can get into the bloodstream and cause an illness called invasive Group A strep (iGAS).

In the UK, nine children have died from a rare form of strep A, the most recent being a 5-year-old in Belfast.

Further Laboratory Investigation

“As far as we understand it at this time, we have been receiving reports of a death in a 4-year-old, and as far as we understand it among a number of other conditions that are being considered as contributory factors, there may be a consideration of that invasive Group A streptococcal infection,” O’Moore told RTÉ’s “News at One.”

The child who died was from the north east of the country, which includes the north Dublin area.

“This is still being considered actively, so as I speak to you we haven’t confirmed that, it is subject to further laboratory investigation,” added O’Moore.

“But it is reasonable to say it is among the differential diagnoses at this time,” he said.

Irish authorities have been notified of 55 strep A cases so far this year, with a small increase in the reported cases since the beginning of October.

Fourteen of these cases were in children aged under 10 years old, compared to 22 cases in children aged under 10 for the same period in 2019.

On Wednesday, Scotland’s Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said the number of strep A infections in the country has increased, but there have been no deaths from the condition.

Preventative Antibiotics

On Tuesday, the UK Minister of State at the Department for Education, Nick Gibb, said that preventative antibiotics could be given to children at schools affected by strep A infections.

“Lord Markham said in the House of Lords yesterday that the UK Health and Security Agency [UKHSA] are monitoring the position and are considering those kind of issues in those schools where there is an infection,” he said.

“This is an ongoing situation, the UKHSA are involved very closely with those schools and they will be providing further advice later on,” he added.

“But that may well be an option for those particular schools where there is an infection,” said Gibb.

On Wednesday, the UKHSA confirmed that local health protection teams can give antibiotics to groups of children where there has been a strep A outbreak.

Deputy Director of the UKHSA Dr. Colin Brown told Sky News there is “long-standing guidance” that enables health protection teams to assess the situation in schools and nurseries to consider antibiotic prophylaxis for “either a group of children in certain classes or an entire nursery school.”

Asked about the rise in cases on Monday, UKHSA Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Susan Hopkins told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program: “Firstly, I think that we’re seeing a lot of viral infections circulate at the moment and these bacterial infections can come as an addition on top.

“Secondly, we’re back to normal social mixing and the patterns of diseases that we’re seeing in the last number of months are out of sync with the normal seasons as people mix back to normal and move around and pass infections on,” said Hopkins.

“We also need to recognise that the measures that we’ve taken for the last couple of years to reduce COVID circulating will also reduce other infections circulating and so that means that as things get back to normal, these traditional infections that we’ve seen for many years are circulating at great levels,” she added.

‘Don’t Jump to Conclusions’

Some British media outlets have reported that health experts are not ruling out a link between the rise in strep A cases and the end of COVID-19 lockdown measures.

Consultant pathologist and HART member Dr. Clare Craig previously told The Epoch Times that, “I don’t think we can conclude that.”

HART is an organisation that was set up to share concerns about policy and guidance recommendations relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Deaths of children from strep A are, rightly, hugely emotive but it is important people don’t jump to conclusions about why it is happening,” Craig said.

She added that since 2014 there have been increasing cases of scarlet fever, as well as a more dangerous version of it, and that, historically, waves occurred every few years.

But Craig said that there are “odd things happening with infectious diseases where things have occurred at unusual times like RSV [respiratory syncytial virus], but the story that the numbers are way higher is not really true.”

PA Media contributed to this report.