Alarming rise in ‘slapped cheek’ virus which can be passed from children to pregnant women and cause miscarriage
A highly contagious virus that can cause miscarriages is ravaging Britain – and Covid and the endless lockdowns could be to blame.
MailOnline can reveal that levels of parvovirus B19 in women of childbearing age in England have reached their highest level in a decade.
The virus itself causes ‘slapped cheek syndrome’, so named because of the characteristic skin rash it produces.
Although common in children and usually harmless, it can be more serious in adults, especially pregnant women.
According to the NHS, one in eight pregnancies affected by parvovirus will end in miscarriage, with the risk being highest in the first 20 weeks.
The virus itself causes ‘slapped cheek syndrome’ – so called because of the characteristic skin rash it produces
Sadly, some women have already lost a child due to the ongoing outbreak.
A woman talks about her experiences with the forum mother net earlier this year urged expectant mothers to take the symptoms of the disease seriously.
“I got what I thought was the flu when I was about 12 weeks pregnant,” she wrote.
‘It started with chills and fever and aches all over the body. It progressed to headaches and painful wrists and joints.
“I also threw up for a whole day, but I wondered if it was my morning sickness. Then I felt really post-viral for a couple weeks.”
‘It was only then that I woke up one morning with a bright red face (the rash indicates it is no longer contagious), which I had been suffering from for a few days / it was hot and felt like I had been burned.’
When she called her midwife for help, it turned out to be parvovirus and she was rushed in for a check-up, with a heartbreaking result.
‘I went to the midwife for an ultrasound on Tuesday. I was 16 weeks pregnant and found out that the baby had died from parvovirus.
‘To see a healthy and active baby at the 12 and 13 week ultrasound, to have a low risk Harmony test and perfect nuchal translucency measurements, and then to be told there was no heartbeat and there was fluid everywhere in the baby, was devastating.’
Although parvovirus is common and usually harmless in children, it can be more serious in adults, especially pregnant women. Tragically, some women have already lost babies due to the ongoing outbreak
“The most disturbing thing was that the specialist said they normally only see one case a year, yet in the past week they had seen four cases.”
She concluded her post by saying that she didn’t want to scare people, but that the issue should be taken seriously: “I just want to raise some awareness because if it saves one baby’s life, it’s worth it.”
Parvovirus spreads like the flu and most often occurs in the spring and early summer.
Normally, an outbreak peaks once every four years, with the last major season occurring in 2018.
So there would be another peak during Covid.
It is thought that two-thirds of adults are immune to parvovirus because they have had it before and had mild, flu-like symptoms.
But pandemic measures have stopped the spread of germs such as parvovirus, weakening population immunity.
Parvovirus cases increased toward the end of 2023, outside the usual seasonal pattern.
Rates have skyrocketed this year, with more than 70 laboratory-confirmed cases recorded by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in June. Levels have since fallen.
For comparison, in 2018 the monthly peak level never exceeded 50.
The last major outbreak occurred in 2013, when the number of cases exceeded 100.
Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, said pandemic-era restrictions could have led to a similar surge in cases to what the country saw with Strep A.
An illustration of parvovirus B19 particles in the bloodstream. Two-thirds of adults are thought to be immune to the virus because they have had it and have only mild flu-like symptoms.
“The circulation of the virus among the population fluctuates over time and we are currently in an upward phase with numbers as high as they have been in the past ten years,” he said.
‘It is striking that there were very few infections in the Covid years. The number of people with natural immunity may therefore be lower than would normally be the case, leading to the high numbers we are seeing now.’
He added that parvovirus is what experts call a “background infection,” which people normally get as children and to which they develop lifelong immunity.
Although the disease is usually mild, even in later life, he added that at-risk groups such as pregnant women should be closely monitored if they develop the disease because of the potential impact on the fetus.
“Healthcare providers need to be aware that the virus is present so that testing can be carried out if there is a suspicion of infection in one of the risk groups,” he said.
Dr Simon Clarke, a cell microbiologist in Reading, added that while the baseline number of cases may seem low, it is likely to be an underestimate of what is happening in the community and its potential impact on expectant mothers.
“Human parvovirus infection is usually asymptomatic, so we never really have a full picture of how much it is circulating in the population at any given time,” he said.
‘Although these numbers are low, meaning that small fluctuations in the number of infections may appear to be a more dramatic increase than they actually are, the risk of miscarriage should not be underestimated.’
Like Professor Jones, he suspected that the lockdowns and other restrictions imposed due to Covid-19 were limiting transmission of the virus and that it cannot be ruled out that there is now lower immunity in the population.
‘Like Covid-19, human parvovirus relies on human-to-human transmission. It therefore appears that the lockdowns and restrictions imposed by Covid-19 have also limited the spread of this virus. We may now be returning to a more normal pattern of infections,’ he said.
‘Given the very low number of cases detected, it is not plausible to say with certainty that there is a decrease in overall immunity to parvovirus in the population, but this cannot be ruled out.’
National testing for parvovirus, which is easily confused with other rash-causing illnesses, including rubella, is inconsistent.
Only expectant mothers who have been in contact with infected persons or who have developed a rash are tested.
In pregnant women diagnosed with the infection, their baby’s health is closely monitored for three months through regular ultrasound scans.
There are currently no ways to directly treat the disease or prevent the baby from becoming infected.
Babies in the womb can suffer from fetal anemia due to parvovirus infection. This can sometimes be treated by a special blood transfusion to the fetus, but this procedure itself carries a risk of miscarriage.