– They have really worked hard on those who have been on duty this Saturday and Sunday, says Marit Teigen Hauge, who is assistant municipal doctor. There is a major outbreak of scarlet fever in the Molde area. The emergency department has set a new record for the number of patients treated at the emergency department with almost 100 a day. About half of these have been children who are being evaluated for scarlet fever. One of these was Jon Magnus Solgaard, who went there with his four-year-old child. He was shocked by the number of people in the emergency room, and was worried when he was told that they had no more penicillin left in the pharmacy. Scarlet fever Scarlet fever is a sore throat caused by streptococcal bacteria, which also causes a red rash on the face and body. Conspicuous pallor around the mouth. Easily combated with antibiotics. The disease is transmitted by droplet and contact infection. It takes from 1 to 3 days from the time you are infected until you become ill. You are contagious from just before the disease breaks out until one day after treatment with antibiotics has begun. Starts with sore throat and fever. Typically the tongue becomes very red. Some become nauseous, vomit and have stomach pains. Considered a childhood disease, and you rarely get the disease several times. After 1 to 2 weeks of being ill, you often start to peel on the palms of your hands and on the soles of your feet. Was a feared disease that ravaged in epidemics throughout the 19th century in Norway, with a mortality rate of around 10%, and was thus one of the most common causes of death among children at the end of the 19th century. Before treatment with antibiotics, complications such as kidney inflammation and gouty fever were common. Source nhi.no – Packed full – When I came down to the pharmacy to take out the mixture we had been prescribed at the emergency room, she said they were out of it, says the father of small children. His doctor therefore prescribed instead in tablet form, according to Solgaard. Jon Magnus Solgaard is concerned that there is too little of the penicillin that is best suited for small children with scarlet fever. Photo: Private – He said we should crush the tablet and take it in yogurt or jam. But it tastes very bitter from a tablet form, and secondly, he has a sore throat and difficulty swallowing. So it didn’t work. After several rounds of calls, the father of the toddler went back to the emergency room. There he still got the mixture, because they had a small warehouse there. – And it was packed in the emergency room. The warehouse that is there will probably run out quickly, says Solgaard. Photo: Alamy Stock Photo National delivery problem – There is a national delivery problem with potions, about which concern has been expressed for a long time, says the assistant municipal superintendent. She explains that they have tried to collect what is available in their local region on antibiotic potions and got it to the emergency department’s stock. Marit Teigen Hauge, assistant municipal doctor, believes there are around twenty more children who have started penicillin this weekend after suspecting scarlet fever. Photo: Øyvind Berge Sæbjørnsen / news – There is potion available for ten children, and we have plenty of tablets, so I think we will be fine until the next delivery. The next delivery of penicillin, which is best suited for scarlet fever, will arrive on both Tuesday and Thursday next week, informs Teigen Hauge. – We have communicated to all local pharmacies that we need the potion, so they will order it into their warehouses if it exists. – Small and vulnerable market Monica Larsen, senior adviser in the pharmaceutical industry, explains that Norway is a small and vulnerable market. And she confirms that there is a market failure for the older types of antibiotics. She believes that active measures should be taken to counter the vulnerability in the market. – Then we should either pay off the full price of these antibiotics, work at a Nordic level and get a common Nordic market, or the third could be to introduce a pilot as they have done in Sweden. Larsen explains that in the neighboring country they operate with a kind of guarantee scheme, so that the producers are paid a certain amount in return for delivering to the market. Rash of scarlet fever on the neck of a child. Photo: Science Photo Library Contagion in several places But it is not only in the Molde area that children have been discovered with scarlet fever. Several infected children have also been discovered in the Oslo area. The municipal chief physician in Ålesund, Alexander Wiig, says that they have received reports from a school and a kindergarten in the city about suspected cases of scarlet fever. He also knows that they have had a number of suspected cases at the emergency room in Ålesund. – We know that this is very contagious, and expect to see a number of cases in the future, says Wiig. Yngvild E. Bentdal, doctor at FHI’s department for infection control and vaccination, encourages parents to have a low threshold for going to the doctor with their children. – Parents should behave as before and see a GP or emergency room if the child has symptoms of strep throat or scarlet fever, to assess whether there is a need for antibiotic treatment.
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Starting to run out of penicillin potion after bacterial outbreak
