Around this time last year, my young daughter caught chickenpox. I thought it was a standard case of a normal childhood illness – we’d manage it by trying to ease the itching and everything would be fine.
Instead, my daughter got worse. She developed a sore throat, then a body rash, and struggled to drink liquids. Again, I thought this was a normal progression of her infection and she would eventually get better. It was only after I started talking to my colleagues that I learned that group A strep cases had been reported among schools in the vicinity. I also found out that chickenpox could lead to increased vulnerability against strep A, particularly among children.
