About 30% of group A strep bacteria are resistant to azithromycin and clindamycin, but penicillin and amoxicillin still work, a pediatric infectious disease specialist told pediatricians at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2026 National Conference & Exhibition in San Diego. Dr. Rana F. Hamdy of Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., also urged doctors to be more selective about which children they test, according to her report in Contemporary Pediatrics.
"It's really important that we're judicious about which patients we test in, so that we don't end up overtesting and then leading to overprescription of antibiotics," Hamdy said.
