Duration
After infection with scarlet streptococci, the disease breaks out after 2-4 days incubation. Fever, headache, feeling of sickness and the white strawberry tongue may occur. After a further 48 hours or so, other symptoms may appear, such as a rash on the trunk, head, extremities, cheeks and palate. The rash may persist for up to a week and the flake-like detachment of the skin may continue to spread for weeks to months. Subsequently, poststreptococcal infection may occur.
What can be the late effects?
The dreaded late consequence of scarlet fever is the so-called post streptococcal infection. In order to prevent this, therapy with antibiotics is essential. In adults, scarlet fever is easily overlooked due to its often milder course and is therefore not treated with antibiotics.
The scarlet fever causing bacterium Streptococcus causes an independent response of the human immune system, which causes damage to individual organs. On the one hand, the germ causes a cross-reaction of antibodies that the body forms against the antigens of streptococcus. Since the antigens of the germ are very similar to the cells in the heart and nerves, the self-produced antibodies attack these cells and trigger an infection.
Furthermore, this reaction of the immune system can infect the kidneys, joints and skin. A typical clinical picture, which can occur about 2-6 weeks after streptococcal infection, is rheumatic fever. In medically not well developed countries this occurs far more frequently than in Germany. The therapy here is also an antibiotic that kills the germ that causes the infection.
- An increased temperature,
- An inflammation of the heart muscle,
- Skin rash,
- Inflammation of the joints or
- Inflammation of the kidneys.
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