Question reference: S4W-24978
- Asked by: Margaret McDougall, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 19 March 2015
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Current status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 31 March 2015
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what the rate of early-onset group B streptococcus infections per 1,000 live births has been and how many pregnant women have had (a) an enriched culture medium and (b) standard test for group B streptococcus carriage, in each year from 2003.
Answer
Group B Streptococcal infections are not notifiable under the terms of the Public Health (Scotland) Act 2008. Surveillance of invasive early onset Streptococcal B infection in Scotland is based on laboratory confirmed reports received through the electronic reporting system Electronic Communication of Surveillance in Scotland. Full implementation of this system took place during 2008, prior to this some laboratories may not have reported cases. Based on figures provided by Health Protection Scotland, from reviewing available data on the number of laboratory confirmed reports, gives the estimated incidence per 1000 births of early onset invasive Group B Streptococcal for the period 2009-2013 as:
| 2009 | 0.46 |
| 2010 | 0.46 |
| 2011 | 0.44 |
| 2012 | 0.47 |
| 2013 | 0.32 |
The figure for 2014 is 0.44, this is based on the number of births for 2014 extrapolated from the number of births reported for the first three quarters of 2014 and is likely to be amended later in 2015 based on the total number of births for 2014.
Data on the number of pregnant women who have had an enriched culture medium and standard test for Group B Streptococcus carriage in not collected nationally.