In the past years, all reports concerning the incidence of, as well as the morbidity from, scarlet fever have had common themes—that the disease is no longer the threat it was many decades ago and that the epidemiologic characteristics, symptoms, sequelae, and treatment of scarlet fever are usually no different from those of group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis.1 As a result, in the contemporary pediatric literature, there is no clinical information on the risk of second and even multiple attacks of scarlet fever.
Therefore, we report the results of our recent study in which we prospectively examined the risk of recurrent attacks of GAS scarlet fever following the primary episode of the disease in a small series of children.
Patient Reports.Enrollment. Between February 1991, and January 1992, children seen in the acute care clinic for signs and symptoms of scarlet fever (eg, abrupt onset of sore throat, fever,