A common killer bug is endangering Americans: ‘Pandemic in plain sight’

Five years after the worldwide hyperfocus on COVID-19 began, some are concerned about the next pandemic — whether it could be caused by influenza, bird flu or another pathogen.

Too easily overlooked are non-influenza, non-COVID viruses and bacteria that are burgeoning and spreading unchecked — both in the U.S. and around the world. While they may not cause the next pandemic, they do cause a lot of illness and death.

One such bacteria is Streptococcus Group A, an old enemy that colonizes the throat and tonsils of close to 20% of U.S. children, according to Dr. Joshua Osowicki, team leader and senior research fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. 

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This problematic bacterial strain is easily treated with penicillin drugs when it causes a clinical infection, Osowicki told Fox News Digital in an on-camera interview. (See the video at the top of this article.)

But the problem, he said, is that because the bacteria may be harbored, the diagnosis isn’t always found early enough.

Scarlet fever and rheumatic fever/rheumatic heart disease can result from recurrent or untreated strep — and they are on the increase again in areas without adequate medical care, including parts of the U.S.

"Rheumatic heart disease is a chronic, non-infectious illness that occurs after untreated group-based streptococcal infections — and almost certainly after multiple untreated, group-based streptoococcus infections," Osowicki said.

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His research reveals that the prevalence of a life-threatening invasive version of strep Group A — which can include deep-rooted skin infections, sepsis, meningitis and deadly pneumonia — is on the rise around the world. 

The aggressive skin infections, which are associated with intravenous drug use, can lead to the need for repeated surgeries, along with antibiotics.

In the U.S., there have been more than double the annual incidents of invasive Group A strep in 10 states, with 21,000 cases and about 2,000 deaths between 2013 and 2022, according to Osowicki.

"In many ways, it’s a pandemic in plain sight," he said of Group A strep, adding that close to a billion people likely experience symptomatic disease from the bacteria each year.

"It actually does its damage in severe, life-threatening cases before the patient receives antibiotics."

The important thing with group A strep, according to the doctor, is that antibiotic resistance isn't the primary issue. 

"Group A strep is reliably killed by penicillin — and has been since 1941 when penicillin was introduced," Osowicki noted. 

"The point is that it actually does its damage in severe, life-threatening cases before the patient receives antibiotics. There's this period where it is too hard to diagnose and treatment comes too late." 

In those cases, he said, the patients need ICUs, surgery and "the most intensive treatment we have to offer."

Among patients over the age of 65 or so, a quarter of them will die with this form of the disease, according to Osowicki.

Need for a vaccine

There is not currently a vaccine for Group A strep.

While the more common form of strep throat and minor skin infections are "less scary," Osowicki warned of the dangers of overlooking the more invasive version of the disease. 

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"We look away sometimes from the life-threatening infections that we struggle to prevent, diagnose and treat, (until) these become the front-page sepsis cases that you see in the newspaper many weeks of the year," he said.

"They're headline-catching cases. They're the cases like Rory Staunton in New York, whose tragic death (in 2012 from sepsis) really triggered the state sepsis mandates across the U.S."

The need for an effective vaccine is clear — both for invasive strep and the more common variety. Osowicki and others in his group are working hard on developing them.

"The current thrust of my research is all vaccine-related," he shared. "We do what are called human challenge trials, where we deliberately infect healthy adult volunteers with group A strep, painting it on their tonsils. And we do that in a very careful way, in an inpatient environment."

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The researchers also provide early antibiotic treatments and collect throat swabs, blood and saliva to study how the human-only pathogen works and to explore ways to stop it.

"The ultimate goal is that it becomes a really high-powered platform to establish the efficacy of vaccines," said Osowicki.

There are many vaccine candidates in various stages of development, from the protein-adjuvant kind (like Shingrix or the Novavax COVID vaccine) to the MRNA platform and various other kinds, the researcher said. 

"We're working with every vaccine company that has a group-based streptococcal vaccine candidate in development," he said. 

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There are up to 10 different group-based strep vaccines in development, ranging from entirely pre-clinical vaccines that have never seen a person to vaccines that have been tested in phase 1 trials, Osowicki noted.

He said he is concerned about vaccine skepticism, particularly after the COVID pandemic, which can keep people from trusting the emerging science. 

Still, the researcher is excited about the future of the strep A vaccine and others, though he expects it could take at least five to 10 years before a worthy candidate reaches doctors’ offices.

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The new vaccine will be geared toward adults with skin infections, as well as the many millions of children who are at risk of both mild and severe disease.

The goal, Osowicki said, is to "create a vaccine that the world wants, that the world accepts, that the world says is safe, and that will help our children."

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