Scarlet fever conjures an image of the saintly character Beth March in the 19th-century novel Little Women, the third of four daughters and the one who succumbs to the disease.

But recent developments remind us it’s an infection not to be romanticised nor relegated to the past, with fears the once-common childhood killer might make a comeback.

Epidemic scarlet fever has been reported in the UK, Hong Kong and China over the past five years.

Earlier this year, infectious diseases researchers in Queensland isolated a group A streptococcus strain from a seven-year-old girl and proved its close evolutionary link to a subclade of isolates causing the UK outbreaks.