Scarlet fever vax?

[PinkinPA]

Anyone know anything about this?

I was talking with my (I'm 33) grandmother (82) about if my aunts and my dad had had the measles and mumps and whatnot. She said that they had contracted them, she said they weren't that bad of an illnes. So, I asked about their (aunts and dad) vaccine status. I cna't remember what she said they had been vaxxed for because I got hung up on her saying that she was pretty sure they were vaxed for scarlet fever.

Anyway, my point is, I have never heard anything except passing mentions of scarlet fever. I wonder if this was such a wonderful vaccine that it wiped out the disease (at least in my view) then how come this isn't in the big bag of back patting of the vax company?
Look howgreat we are! we wiped out Scarlet Fever!!

[fruitfulmomma]

I am pretty sure Dr. Eisenstein (during his vax safety webinar on Wednesday) said there has never been a vax for Scarlet Fever in the US.

[earthmama369]

I'm not sure how that would work. Scarlet fever, as I understand it (from when I had it while pregnant with ds), is that it's basically a side effect of untreated strep A. Say you catch strep A, but it's asymptomatic so you don't get it treated...it can progress to scarlet fever. But you don't actually catch scarlet fever from anyone. I'm not sure how a vax would be developed for that and I'm really not sure why anyone would bother. It's not communicable. And it's very easily treated.

[gr8blessings]

There was a vaccine for scarlet fever in the 1920s, but it was abandoned in favour of antibiotics, which work better.

Scarlet fever is caused by an acute infection of Group A strep (Streptococcus pyogenes). Some strains have a toxin that causes scarlet fever and some strains don't. For some reason, the strains with the toxin seem to be disappearing and scarlet fever isn't as common as it once was. It is a communicable disease. Basically, scarlet fever is strep throat with a rash & high fever.

Untreated strep throat can lead to rheumatic fever. It is a hypersensitivity reaction in which the antibodies made to the bacteria cause damage that lead to the disease. The idea is to treat strep throat with antibiotics before the body has a chance to make these antibodies. Strep throat will get better on it's own, but the consequences of that can be life-threatening if rheumatic fever develops.

Development of a vaccine would be tricky due to the involvement of the hypersensitivity reaction leading to rheumatic fever. I imagine that treatment with antibiotics will remain the preferred choice over development of an effective vaccine.

HTH,
gr8blessings