Streptococcus A: Antibiotics

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My general thinking—this is a personal view—is that the market is normally very well placed to supply these things. There was the excellent example of the vaccines, whereby it acted incredibly quickly and got Covid vaccines out as necessary. I think we are always better placed using the strength of the whole market and looking to international suppliers as well. They are always going to be able to provide the necessary medicine to a quicker timescale than our own company would.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, since the risk of invasive group A streptococcal infection is increased in the presence of other viral infections—any of them; it could even be chickenpox in children—what guidance are the Government giving to all schools on public health measures to decrease cross-infection between children and ensure parents are encouraged to keep those who might be unwell away from school, rather than sending them to school, as is the tendency, because of attendance registers?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Baroness is correct; it is the coincidence of more than one condition, particularly respiratory conditions, which causes the more extreme cases. The advice is definitely to keep children away from school if there is any question on that at all, especially as we are about to enter a period of school holidays. It is very much the view of the experts that the school holidays should flatten the curve of infections. I should also say at this point that while we are all quite correctly concerned about this, and doing everything we can regarding supply, the current levels are still lower than those we saw in 2017-18, when March and April had the normal peaks of around 2,000 a week. We are currently at around 1,200 cases a week and, as I say, we expect that to flatten out a bit with the firebreak, so to speak, of the Christmas holidays.