A seven-year-old child died after being infected with Streptococcus A (Strep A). This is the sixth strep A death reported in Greece since early 2023, the National Health Organization (EODY) said on Monday.
The child died at a hospital in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, on Monday, about 24 hours after being admitted to the hospital with a high fever. The boy ended up having a heart attack following septic shock.
The parents brought the child on Friday to another hospital in the Imathia region in northern Greece. The devastated father of the boy told Alpha TVthat streptococcus was not diagnosed at the local hospital and valuable time was lost as the child slowly developed symptoms of septic shock. “He was a healthy 7-year-old child, very active, he never had health problems,” the father emphasized.
The local prosecutor ordered an investigation into the child’s death. Meanwhile on Tuesday mass media reported that the boy’s 8-year-old cousin had also contracted the same infection and was now receiving proper treatment. According to the latest data, 6 more children from the social environment of the deceased child became infected with Streptococcus A.
In a statement released after the death of the child, EODY said that from September 2022 to the present, there has been a surge in cases of invasive group A streptococcal infections in a number of European countries. During this period, several deaths from this infection in children in under the age of 10 years.
Health experts believe that the increase in cases and deaths may be due to increased circulation of respiratory viruses (influenza, RSV), since viral co-infection with streptococcus increases the risk of invasive infection with this bacterium.
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