Britain should roll out Covid-style LATERAL FLOW tests for Strep A, experts say trends now

Britain should dish out Covid-style home testing for Strep A, experts have started demanding as panicked parents begin to pile even more pressure on crippled NHS services.

Nine children have already died of a rare complication of the usually-mild bacterial infection this winter. Health chiefs say the growing toll, although low, is higher than expected for this time of year.

The surge in cases and resulting fears has left the NHS in 'meltdown', with parents of sick children swamping GP practices, A&E units and 111 call centres.

Dr Nicole Robb, an infectious disease expert at Oxford University, told MailOnline that lateral flow tests should be rolled out to detect the infection earlier, reduce the risk of severe illness and ease NHS pressures.   

Dr Robb, also co-founder of health-tech firm Pictura Bio, said community testing, at home and in pharmacies, would take the 'strain off GPs and hospitals' and let people 'rapidly test if they suspect Strep A'.

She said: 'If your child has sore throat it's likely to just be a mild infection — but in a very small number of cases it might be more serious.'

A simple saliva or nasal swab could confirm a Strep A infection 'before waiting for it to progress' or rule out the bug, easing parent worries. 

Rapid and reliable testing could also see those with confirmed Strep A — or other winter bugs — stay at home and reduce transmission due to earlier detection, Dr Robb said.

'It would also mean that less antibiotics are handed out 'just in case', and we keep them for illnesses that really require them, cutting antibiotic resistance,' she said. 

Dr Robb claimed such lateral flows are already being trialled in some hospitals but it 'needs to be accelerated'.

The Covid testing scheme saw free boxes of seven tests dished out to Brits — either via online ordering or picking them up at pharmacies.

But the programme, which cost £6billion, was scrapped in the spring as part of the Government's 'living with Covid strategy'.

However, health chiefs said it would keep a stockpile in case they need to be rolled out in the future, such as if a worrying new variant emerges.

As it stands, Strep A is diagnosed from a throat swab which is sent to a laboratory to confirm the bacteria behind an infection. But, just like Covid PCR tests, it can take days for results to come back.

Lateral flows for Strep A are widely used in the US and available online and confirm whether the bacteria was detected within 15 minutes.

However, retailers, which sell the tests for as little as £1.90 a pop, are widely sold out online, including on Amazon and pharmacy websites — or have warnings that they will not be delivered until mid-January.

Dr Meaghan Kall, an epidemiologist at the UK Health Security Agency, said that GPs tend to treat suspected Strep A patients based on their symptoms rather than a test.

The approach 'usually works but sometimes a swab here or there would be useful', she said.

But Strep A infections usually resolve themselves or can be treated with antibiotics, so the cost-benefit analysis of a test 'has to be there', she Dr Kall added. 

Professor David Livermore, a microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, said: 'The best answer lies in providing, via pharmacies, inexpensive lateral flow tests, like those used for Covid.

'I have long argued these tests should be adopted in the UK to support antibiotic stewardship — distinguishing patients with a bacterial infection, who need antibiotics, from those with a viral one, who don't.'

He added: 'Keeping children who don't have Strep A in school is now a second good reason to deploy them.'

Strep A bacteria can cause a myriad of infections, including impetigo, scarlet fever and strep throat. It is carried by a fifth of people at any one time, experts estimate.

While the vast majority of cases are relatively mild, sometimes the bacteria cause serious and life-threatening invasive Group A Streptococcal (iGAS).