Overview
Scarlet fever is a bacterial infection that mainly affects children. It usually causes a typical rash, fever and a sore throat.
Thanks to antibiotics like penicillin, scarlet fever is easy to treat. Antibiotics can also reduce the time during which children with scarlet fever are contagious. The infection is spread through bacteria-containing droplets and close physical contact.
Before the development of penicillin, scarlet fever sometimes led to serious complications. But it’s usually quite a mild illness nowadays. It’s still important to try to stop it from spreading to other people, though. One thing you can do is wash your hands often.
Unlike with many other childhood diseases, having had scarlet fever in the past doesn't make you immune to future scarlet fever infections. So people can have it more than once in their lives.