Is intravenous infusion necessary for scarlet fever?

Scarlet fever is an acute respiratory infectious disease that mainly occurs in winter and spring. It can occur in people of any age, and most patients are babies between 2 and 8 years old. The main symptoms after infection are fever, inflammation of the throat, and red rashes and herpes all over the body. Dandruff will appear after the scarlet fever subsides, and most people will experience changes in kidney and heart function as the disease interferes.

Scarlet fever is an acute rash-causing respiratory infectious disease caused by group A beta-hemolytic streptococci. Traditional Chinese medicine calls it "soaking sha" and it mainly occurs in winter and spring. People of any age can get the disease, but babies between 2 and 8 years old are most susceptible to infection. The clinical symptoms are fever, pharyngitis, diffuse scarlet rash all over the body and skin desquamation after the rash subsides. A small number of people may develop allergic heart and kidney complications after the illness.

Scarlet fever is highly contagious and is usually most contagious from 24 hours before onset to the peak of the disease. If a baby with scarlet fever comes into contact with a normal person, he or she will directly infect others through droplets.

However, the most important source of infection is non-scarlet fever patients infected with beta-hemolytic streptococci, such as carriers with acute tonsillitis, pharyngitis or other respiratory streptococcal infections but no symptoms. Therefore, it is common to see such a phenomenon in kindergartens: some babies catch scarlet fever soon after catching a cold, or the father or mother at home suffers from tonsillitis, pharyngitis and other diseases, which infects the baby with scarlet fever.

However, babies usually gain lifelong immunity after having scarlet fever, and only a very small number of babies will develop scarlet fever a second time due to infection with different types of bacteria.

Usually, scarlet fever has an acute onset. The baby will be afraid of cold and have a fever. The fever may be between 38℃ and 39℃ in mild cases and 39℃ to 40℃ in severe cases. At the same time, it may be accompanied by nausea and vomiting, headache, red and swollen tonsils or purulent exudate, and very painful throat, especially when swallowing. Most babies develop a rash on their skin 12 hours after the onset of the disease, but occasionally a few babies develop the rash two days later.

About a week after the onset of the disease, the rash will disappear in the order in which it appeared, usually within 2 to 4 days. In babies with severe illness, it may take about a week to disappear. From the weekend of the first week to the beginning of the second week after the onset of the disease, the skin begins to desquamate in flakes. Usually, the desquamation on the face and neck is bran-like, the desquamation on the trunk is scaly, and the desquamation on the palms and soles is glove- or sock-like.

After the scarlet fever rash subsides, it will not leave any scars or pigmentation on the skin. For most sick babies, their body temperature gradually returns to normal as the rash subsides. A very small number of children have severe symptoms, including high fever, convulsions, coma, and even shock. Sometimes it may be complicated by myocarditis, nephritis, rheumatic fever, otitis media, pneumonia and other diseases.