Obvious signs of scarlet fever in a child is reason to call “ambulance”.
Scarlet fever is a “child’s” disease, but also they can get sick and adults who in the childhood suffered this infection. Infection occurs through airborne droplets, so most often it occurs in children’s educational institutions, where accumulates a large number of children and toxic streptococci have a lot of opportunities for the defeat of the tonsils in children with weakened immune systems.
As has become clear, once had been ill with scarlet fever, one gains lifelong immunity against the disease. Physicians scarlet fever is not considered too terrible disease, but still have a place to be cases where patients fail to receive proper treatment and the infection gives complications, such as myocarditis, otitis, rhinitis, glomerulonephritis or rheumatic fever.
Its symptoms scarlet fever is very similar to angina pain in the throat and inflammation of the tonsils, although it has distinctive features:
1. Rash of red color. At the initial stage of development of the scarlet fever rash appears on the neck and chest of the patient, as well as on the face. But then she grows throughout the body. Small, red prominent spots coalesce with each other and the skin becomes like one big blur.
2. Itching. Usually, when scarlet fever the child is scratching all over the body due to a pesky severe itching.
3. Headache and high fever usually accompany a patient with scarlet fever the first 2-3 days of the disease.
4. A pale shade of nasolabial triangle. Contracted scarlet fever, the child is literally all red, but the region of nasolabial triangle remains pale.
5. Swollen lymph nodes indicates the presence in the body of the infection and the inflammatory process.
6. The mouth becomes a bright red color.
7. Visible ulcers on the tonsils is characteristic of scarlet fever.
The symptoms are most pronounced in the first four days of the disease. The incubation period for scarlet fever lasts about 12-14 days. At the same time, the rash and other signs of infection disappear on day 5, but the patient is still a source of contagious infections, so contact with him healthy children and adults is highly undesirable. Small children aged 2-8 years old, ill with scarlet fever, remain in hospital about two weeks after fully recovered.
