More than 40 cases of scarlet fever have been discovered in Merseyside in the last week - as 15 children were confirmed to have died of invasive Strep A in the UK.
The latest figures released by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) show that 1,131 people in England and Wales have been infected with scarlet fever, a manifestation of Strep A infection, in the week ending December 4. That is up from 991 infections the previous week.
Official figures show that there has been a post-Covid surge in cases of scarlet fever this year.
In total between July and December, there have been 11,089 cases of scarlet fever, almost a 10-fold increase from 1,338 cases over the same period of 2021, and nearly 20 times higher than the 577 cases in 2020.
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