Downing a spoonful of bubblegum pink amoxicillin is a regular part of being a kid, but a nationwide shortage of the antibiotic is making a particularly bad season of strep throat tougher.
That hit home for Caitlin Rivers recently when both of her kids had strep.
“We had to visit several pharmacies to find the medication that we needed,” says Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It just adds another burden on what’s already been a really difficult winter respiratory season for families.”
A spike in strep
Strep, short for Streptococcus, can cause a bacterial infection that typically leads to a sore throat, fever and swollen tonsils. It can affect adults, but it’s most common in school-aged children.
Because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t closely track run-of-the-mill strep infections, it’s unclear just how many cases there are in the U.S. right now. But Rivers says strep activity has been higher in the last few months compared to previous years.
“This whole winter season has been really tough for the common pathogens that keep us out of school and out of work,” says Rivers. “And strep throat is the one that has really been going around.”
The CDC is tracking an especially nasty kind of strep, called invasive group A strep.
Invasive strep means that instead of the bacteria staying in the throat, it spreads to other parts of the body, Rivers says. The bacteria can get into the bloodstream or cause a rash on the skin, for instance.
And after two years of record low cases of invasive strep during the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, cases are higher than…
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