Epidemiology of group A streptococcal infections--their changing frequency and severity.

The frequency and severity of streptococcal infections and their sequelae have declined dramatically in the past century, yet the prevalence of streptococcal infections is still high. The reasons for this decline must be intimately related to host resistance, virulence of the agent, and environmental factors, especially crowding. Close examination of these fundamental influences does not reveal any evidence that humans have become less resistant to streptococcal infections, but they react less violently. There is some evidence that the agent may have lost a degree of its virulence. The decline in morbidity and mortality due to streptococcal infections began long before antibiotics, especially penicillin, were available. However, penicillin has proved to be an important factor in prevention of streptococcal infections, especially in rheumatic fever prophylaxis. There are certain indications that repeated streptococcal infections due to similar M types, occurring in young children over the past several decades, have resulted in some degree of immunity as well as the possible evolution of less virulent, but not less infectious, strains of group A streptococci. Also, a decrease in crowding would be expected to result in fewer streptococcal infections. Although there are more people in the world than at any other time in the history of man, urban population density in the western world, at least, is less than in the late 1800s and early 1900s.