(Nature) As the days lengthen and temperatures rise each spring, British paediatricians know what to expect: an increase in group A streptococcal infections that should tail off by the summer. But an off-season outbreak of the bacterial infections this year has jumbled expectations, made scores of people ill and killed 13 children under the age of 15 in England since September. “To my knowledge, we’ve never seen a peak like this at this time of year, at least not for decades,” says microbiologist Shiranee Sriskandan at Imperial College London.
Why is strep A surging — and how worried are scientists?
