British pediatricians each spring know what to expect: an increase in group A streptococcal infections that should be tail off by the summer. But an off-season outbreak of the bacterial infections this year has jumbled expectations, made scores of people ill and killed 13 children under the age of 15 in England since September.

“To my knowledge, we’ve never seen a peak like this at this time of year, at least not for decades,” says microbiologist Shiranee Sriskandan at Imperial College London.

One theory is that lack of exposure to group A Streptococcus (strep A) during lockdowns at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic means that young children lack immunity against the bacteria. But it is too early to say for certain if this is behind the strep A surge.

“There are a lot of things that seem to be a bit strange happening after the lockdowns. But it’s hard to say whether that’s causing the surge right now, especially given that we have had surges prior to the pandemic.”1

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References

  1. Ledford, H. (2022). Why is strep A surging — and how worried are scientists? Nature, 612(7941), 603–603. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04403-y

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