TB and scarlet fever: why Victorian diseases are making a comeback

Despite 100 years of medical advancement, old-fashioned infections are creeping back into Britain. Should we be worried?

The notice pinned to the door of my son’s nursery in Bristol made me start: “A child at this nursery has been diagnosed with scarlet fever.” Googling the symptoms, I found images of peeling, strawberry-red tongues and blotchy rashes, but it was the name that really gave me the shivers. Charles Darwin lost two of his children to scarlet fever; it just seemed so, well, Victorian.

A few days later, the nursery informed us of a second case. However, this localised outbreak is far from unique: as of 8 April, a total of 10,570 cases of scarlet fever had been reported to Public Health England since the season began in September 2015, up from 9,379 during the same period in 2014-15.

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