Scarlet fever is an acute infectious disease characterized by general intoxication, fever, inflammation of the palatine tonsils and a pinpoint rash all over the body. Basically, scarlet fever occurs in children, adults are sick much less often.
The causative agent is hemolytic streptococcus, most often Streptococcus pyogenes. The main symptoms of scarlet fever are not caused by streptococcus itself, but by the toxin that bacteria secrete into the blood.
Sources of the causative agent of infection are a patient with scarlet fever or any other clinical form of streptococcal infection and bacterial carrier. Often with unexpressed or unclear symptoms, scarlet fever is taken for banal angina, and the child is a hotbed of potential infection for other children.
Most often, children aged 3 to 10 years are being treated for medical help, which is due to imperfections in the immune mechanisms of body protection. Today we will look at scarlet fever in more detail, learn the first symptoms of the disease in children, see photos, as well as methods of treatment and prevention.
Causes
The name of the disease comes from Latin and literally means "bright red apparently because of the most obvious symptom of scarlet fever - a characteristic red rash.
Scarlet fever is a bacterial disease, caused by beta-hemolytic streptococcus of group A, also causing other streptococcal infections - angina, chronic tonsillitis, rheumatism, acute glomerulonephritis, streptoderma, face and others.
Patients with scarlet fever are the greatest danger in the first few days of the disease, The probability of transmission of infection completely disappears three weeks after the deployment of the clinical symptoms.
The main ways of infectionare:
- airborne (for example, when talking and sneezing);
- household (through underwear, toys, and other household items);
- food (through food).
Factors contributing to developmentdiseases:
- cold season (autumn, winter);
- chronic diseases of the tonsils, pharynx;
- acute viral infections (acute respiratory viral infection, influenza);
- low immunity.
A person is infected from the 1st to the 22nd day of the disease. The most common illnesses are sick in the autumn-winter period.
Symptoms of scarlet fever in children
Scarlet fever occurs mainly in children, the symptoms begin to appear 1-7 days after infection - this is the incubation period of scarlet fever. At this time, the microbe that gets into the body multiplies and actively releases toxins, but there are no manifestations of the disease yet.
The disease begins acutely - a sharp rise in temperature and severe pain in the throat. Also, the child starts to have a headache, chills begin and a general malaise. Significant intoxication may cause vomiting. With scarlet fever, children complain of sore throats when swallowing, so the doctor usually reveals a defeat of the tonsils - angina.
By the end of the first day of the onset of the disease, pink pinpoint rash appears on the cheeks, trunk and extremities on the background of hyperemic skin. It first appears in the neck, then spreads to the back and upper chest.
The rash is most intense in the area of the skin folds of the elbows and armpits. Often it is accompanied by itching. The patient's face "burns but around the mouth and nose there is a pale nasolabial triangle of intact skin (Filatov's symptom). When pressing on the site of the rash, the rash disappears for a while, but then reappears.
It is the rash in scarlet fever in children that is the main, most pathogenic symptom, and is explained by the action of erythrogenic toxin on small-calibrated vessels in both the skin and in other organs.
Summing up, we will single out the first signs of the disease:
- Rapid temperature increase up to 39-40С;
- hyperemia of the posterior pharyngeal wall, tonsils, arches of the tongue, soft palate;
- headache, aching muscles, weakness;
- increased mobility or, conversely, apathy and drowsiness;
- vomiting, tachycardia;
- pain in the throat, anterior anterior lymph nodes;
- redness of the tongue and hypertrophy of his papillae.
By the 3-5th day of the disease, the patient's well-being improves, the body temperature gradually decreases. Rashes in scarlet fever occur about a week after the onset of the disease, leaving behind a strong peeling of the skin, which from the surface of the feet and palms peel off entire layers. The intensity of peeling directly depends on the abundance and duration of the rash.
Scarlet fever in children, the symptoms of which bring the infected child a lot of discomfort, a serious disease, so you need to turn to the doctor in time to avoid complications. Adults sometimes have an erased form of the disease, characterized by a slight intoxication, mild catarrh of the pharynx and a scanty, pale, short-term rash.
Treatment of scarlet fever
Light forms of scarlet fever are treated at home, heavy - in the hospital.
Patients are prescribed a sparing diet, a ten-day bed rest and a course of taking multivitamins. The child needs to drink more to remove toxins from the body. After the acute symptoms subsided, the transition to normal diet is gradually carried out.
The drug of choice for treatment and elimination of the cause of scarlet fever is penicillin, it is prescribed by the course for 10 days. In case of an allergy to penicillin, treatment should be done with other antibiotics - erythromycin and cefazolin. In addition to antibiotics, drugs are prescribed - antihistamines, calcium preparations, vitamin C in elevated doses.
Scarlet fever refers to diseases that, with timely antibiotic treatment, almost always end safely, and without treatment - almost always result in severe complications. A mandatory rule for the successful treatment of scarlet fever in any form is compliance with all prescribed by the doctor recommendations.
Visiting children who have had this illness, pre-school institutions and the first two classes of schools is allowed after additional isolation at home within 12 days after recovery.
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Complications
If the first signs of scarlet fever in children do not cause fears in adults, and they did not turn to the doctor in time, complications can arise.
The infection can spread from the tonsils, causing the middle otitis, sinusitis, lymphadenitis. Late complications of scarlet fever associated with infectious-alergic mechanisms (carditis, arthritis, nephritis of autoimmune genesis). In the overwhelming majority of cases with timely treatment and adequate antibiotic therapy, the disease has a favorable prognosis, without development of consequences.
Repeated scarlet fever
Normally, after the transfer of scarlet fever in the body, antibodies to erythrotoxin are produced. But, if the immunity is extremely weakened, it is possible to re-attack the pathogens, which occurred before the complete cure. And then the disease goes to a new stage in the seemingly begun to recover the child.
A recurrent disease of scarlet fever in a long time after the illness is noted in 2 - 4% of cases. This is due to the fact that the use of an antibiotic from the first days of illness does not allow the body to make it to develop antibodies to erythrotoxin But the second time, scarlet fever, as rules, passes in an easier form. Treatment is similar, unless the doctor can prescribe another antibiotic, not the one that was the first time.
More often with repeated attacks of streptococci, angina is observed, because all streptococci are different, and in an ill person develop antibodies only to the "scarlet fever" that met him.
.Prevention of scarlet fever in children
General measures for the prevention of scarlet fever include the timely detection of patients and carriers of infection, their proper isolation from the team, the implementation of quarantine measures.
A sick child should be isolated in a separate room, it should be provided with separate things and utensils. Isolation can cease only after full recovery. People who have been in contact with a scarlet fever (for example, in a kindergarten group) are being quarantined for 7 days.
Forecast
Currently, there are two points of view on treatment and prognosis. One of them connects the ease of the flow of modern scarlet fever with the invention of antibiotics. Other authors believe that improved nutrition and living conditions have had a major impact on the significant relief of scarlet fever and a decrease in mortality.
An important argument in favor of the second point of view is the fact that scarlet fever often proceeds so easily that antibiotics are simply not used (sometimes consciously, but sometimes due to untimely diagnosis), but, with due care of the child, it practically does not affect complications and does not lead to death children.
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