Resident Oregon Health & Science University Portland, Oregon, United States
Background: Group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis is a common pediatric bacterial respiratory infection, accounting for numerous ambulatory clinic and emergency department (ED) visits annually. A seasonal variance is typically observed. From 2020 to 2022, Oregon implemented some of the nation’s most stringent COVID-19 mitigation strategies, including remote school, mask mandates, and social distancing campaigns. Preliminary data shows this coincided with a notable decrease in pediatric GAS pharyngitis cases at our institution. In the current year, the number of cases from just the first half of 2023 have increased well beyond any 12-month period over the prior 9 years. The cause of this dramatic increase is unclear, but demonstrates the importance of real-time surveillance during the current post-pandemic phase. These data also suggest that COVID-19 infection prevention strategies could be used to mitigate future GAS outbreaks. Objective: This study aimed to examine the changing incidence of GAS pharyngitis over the past 10 years in order to compare pre-, intra-, and post-pandemic trends at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) Health, Oregon’s only academic medical center serving the Portland metropolitan area. Design/Methods: So far, cases have been extracted from an institutional data warehouse by identifying all in-person clinical encounters for patients aged 3-18 years associated with an ICD-10 code for “streptococcal pharyngitis” (J02.0) from 1/1/2014 through 6/30/2023. Our goal is to extend the data collection to include cases through Fall 2023 for this poster. Duplicate medical record numbers will be reviewed. Follow-up visits for multiple encounters within 10 days are excluded to avoid duplicate counting of the same pharyngitis episode. In addition, 10% of encounters will be randomly reviewed to assess for data accuracy. The study was determined to be exempt from informed consent by the local Institutional Review Board.
