Preventive Measures of Scarlet fever
One of the core preventive measures that can be employed is the isolation of the infected individual from the rest of the family, especially from those with a higher risk of acquiring the disease-usually infants and young kids of less than ten years. Scarlet fever is highly contagious and can easily be passed on from one infected person to another through direct contact or a healthy person breathing in contaminated air. Whatever an infected person uses, be it a spoon or a plate or a cup, must be thoroughly sterilized after use. Isolation reduces this risk. School going children should be kept away from school for atleast 24 hours after receiving an antibiotic treatment and when they show signs of healing.
Parents should enforce simple but usually hard to maintain practices in their homes like hand washing and general body hygiene of their children not only when scarlet fever rash had been detected, but at all times. Hand washing with soap should be enforced in all schools and children encouraged washing their hands thoroughly after wiping or blowing their noses. Hand washing cuts on the risks of contamination especially in cases where there is high degree of body contacts. People shake hands, kids share almost anything in their possession ranging from their toys, foodstuffs among others, and without precautionary measures, and scarlet fever may spread like a bush fire.
Talking of sharing, it is highly recommended that each child be provided with personal basic needs and discourage sharing. However much children may adore each other and act like they are tied in the waist, they need to understand that they have to use only what belongs to them. Clothes, bed linen, towels among other belongings should not be shared at all because doing so only fuels the infection.
Some other hygiene precautions may be as simple as keeping your children's fingernails shot. Short fingernails promote the hygienic level of a child as the hiding places for bacteria and viruses are drastically cut. Further to that, children noses should be kept dry and clean at all times. Also, proper sneezing methods must be taught to the children and it involves sneezing or coughing to one side, towards the floor and into the tissue or more preferable, a handkerchief. They need to remember to wash their hands afterwards.
Any symptom of scarlet fever in an institution like school or day care must be reported to the nearest healthcare providers. The characteristic sore throat and the scarlet rash are the main symptoms and must be handled with a lot of seriousness. Those who test positive of the fever should be excluded from the rest for atleast twenty four hours after commencing their antibiotic dosage and signs of the fever disappear.