PHARMACIES are getting more flexibility to deal with Strep A infections sweeping the country.
The demand for penicillin, which is commonly used to treat these infections, including scarlet fever, has skyrocketed.
Now ministers have changed the rules so that pharmacists can legally dispense five alternative forms of the medicine if they don’t have the exact form on a prescription, such as an oral solution.
Three other options were cleared last week. Nineteen British children have died from Strep A disease.
Professor Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser to the UK Health Security Agency, said the vast majority of affected children have mild illness and have an “open mind” about why there has been a spike in cases.
She said BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The last bad season we had in 2017 and 18.
“And in invasive Group A Strep cases, we’re more than halfway through what we would normally see in an average season.
“We have seen 111 cases in children aged one to four years and 74 cases in children aged five to nine years.”