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Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection has updated their Scarlet Fever page this morning with new totals gathered from over the weekend.
With 65 new cases recorded in the past 96 hours, the outbreak continues at roughly the same pace we’ve seen for the past couple of weeks.
The good news is that there have been no new fatalities reported.
Last week Dr. York Chow - Secretary for Food and Health - conceded that the current outbreak is likely a`regional phenomenon’. The Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection (CHP) reported that they are in contact with other health departments in the region and are aware of `a simultaneous increase of SF cases in Mainland China and Macao’.
But unlike from Hong Kong, we don’t seem to be getting any detailed numbers.
In a brief news item today from RTHK news, Dr. Chow indicated that he expected this outbreak to continue until September.
While several strains of Group A Streptococcus (GAS) have been found to be circulating in Hong Kong, two mutated strains have been identified that show signs of increased resistance to erythromycin and clindamycin, long considered the standard treatment for the illness.
Fortunately, they remain susceptible to penicillin and some newer drugs of last resort.
According to Kwok-yung Yuen - head of Hong Kong University's microbiology department - the more dominant of the two strains has undergone a genetic mutation that appears to make it more contagious as well.
