GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is investigating three pediatric deaths linked to invasive group A strep, a bacteria that can affect the body differently than simple strep throat.
Helen DeVos Children's Hospital is seeing a handful of cases of invasive group A strep, or iGAS. They say they have had a number of related pediatric deaths in the last three months.
"If this bacteria gets into kind of the wrong part of your body, or a wrong compartment in your body, it can actually cause a very severe and rapidly progressing infection," Dr. George Fogg with the children's hospital says.
iGAS can present very differently, from severe throat pain and high fevers to a skin infection.
"The bacteria itself is spread through respiratory droplets, and that's why strep throat is kind of common, especially in the wintertime. It also again, as I said, lives on your skin so it can be spread by contact," Dr. Fogg says.
iGAS can also cause toxic shock syndrome, severe pneumonia or necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria.
"As you all know, the respiratory season with respiratory viruses this season has been especially aggressive. And I think that might be also why we're seeing increased numbers. It's not like a tidal wave of patients or anything like that," Dr. Fogg says.
"Most of the deaths are you hearing about and children are those situations where group A strep has gotten into the bloodstream and caused a sepsis situation and (for) those kids, it overwhelms them and and then it progresses fairly quickly," Dr. Ronald Hofman with Alger Pediatrics says.
He says another virus in conjunction with iGAS makes it especially critical for children, but he wants to assure parents that it can be very treatable with an antibiotic.
"I would just caution folks about getting too, too terribly uptight about it," Dr. Hofman says. "(If) your child has a strep throat, it's very, very, very unlikely that they're going to be one of these children that will be in our ICUs."
The CDC is also looking into iGAS in children nationwide, and they are encouraging kids and at-risk adults to get their influenza and varicella vaccines as the flu or chickenpox can complicate iGAS.
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