Is Strep B Contagious?

Group B strep (GBS) is not a contagious pathogen. It is, instead, part of the bacterial complement of many healthy people (carriers, or people who have been "colonized" with the bacterium) that can nevertheless cause disease if it breaks the blood barrier. GBS can be communicated to infants during childbirth and also infects older people or adults with otherwise compromised immune systems. This article will help you understand how GBS causes disease, but it should be understood that GBS is not contagious, and that people other than newborns who fall ill with GBS symptoms have become infected with strep already present in their own bodies.

Features

• According to GroupBStrep.org, GBS is a bacterium found in the lower intestines and/or vaginae of up to one-third or more of all adults. Because GBS is a pathogen that must cross the body's blood barrier (infect the blood directly) in order to cause disease, these people experience no symptoms and cannot, furthermore, communicate GBS to others. When GBS does cross the blood barrier, be it due to pregnancy or childbirth, advanced age or weakened immune function, GBS can cause sepsis (blood infection) and other infections as well as meningitis and pneumonia.

Effects

• In both newborns and adults, GBS infection leads to several infections, such as sepsis, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and others, including meningitis in late-onset newborn infection and occasionally in adults. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), GBS is the most common root of both sepsis and meningitis in newborns and is one of the most common causes of pneumonia in that group.

Time Frame

• There are principally three phases in which people may become infected with GBS-during childbirth, soon (a week or more after) birth, and during adulthood, with pregnancy being one of the most commonly associated risk factors. Among aging adults, those who already have serious illnesses are at increased risk. Risk increases with age and, according to the CDC, immobile persons and individuals who are in nursing homes are also at increased risk. Late-onset newborn disease is less common than infection at birth and the CDC states that it is not known why some infants do not develop GBS infection until a week or more after birth.

Identification

• Because the signs of GBS infection in newborns are well known, those babies who demonstrate warning signs will be tested in the hospital for infection. Because GBS colonization is so common and because GBS disease can have serious health consequences for newborns, it is broadly recommended that pregnant women be tested for GBS colonization, which can help doctors undertake preventative measures during childbirth. Once disease is suspected (in either a newborn or an adult), tests are run to confirm specific infections caused by GBS as well as GBS itself, which must be cultured (grown in a lab environment) to confirm a diagnosis of infection.

Prevention/Solution

• The most important and successful means for prevention for GBS infection is the administering of antibiotics to the mother during childbirth, which lowers her level of intestinal and vaginal bacteria during the course and then return to normal levels once antibiotics have ceased. While general disease prevention practices can decrease the risk of GBS disease in adults, there is currently no way to target the prevention of GBS in adults. However, the CDC reports that research is being undertaken into a GBS vaccine. As GBS disease causes a wide array of infections, and these are targeted by their own treatments, which are normally a course of antibiotics.