As you have seen, the cold has been back for a week, and with it, all its accompanying fall infections! This is an opportunity to take stock of a common disease that affects 9 million French people each year: angina. The details of Dr Martin Ducret, doctor and journalist at Doctor’s daily.
franceinfo: First of all, what is angina?
Martin Ducret: Sore throat is an infection of two small lumps at the back of the mouth, just behind the tongue, called the tonsils, which swell and turn red, sometimes with whitish deposits on their surface. Concretely, it manifests itself by a fever and especially by severe pain in the throat. In this case, eating or swallowing can become a real ordeal.
What causes angina?
To fully understand, you have to see medicine as a police investigation.
For the vast majority of angina, there are two suspects. Either a virus, in 80% of cases, or a bacterium from the streptococci family, in 20% of cases.
The problem is that the doctor can hardly tell if the angina is viral or
bacterial.
In this case, as in CSI: Miami, he must carry out a test to identify the culprit. It’s called a Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT), it’s like the antigen test for Covid, except that instead of doing it in the nose, the sample is taken at the back of the throat and 5 minutes later, we have The verdict !
It’s curious, we never hear about this test?
However, this test has existed since 2002, but only 40% of general practitioners use it, although it is provided free of charge by health insurance.
This test can also be done without a prescription in pharmacies, since July 1, 2021, but, in practice, very few pharmacies still offer it.
Is this test really important?
Yes, it makes it possible to avoid the prescription of antibiotics unnecessarily, and therefore to limit
antibiotic resistance, i.e. the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics.
In case of bacterial angina, there can be complications, such as an abscess at the back of the throat for example, so antibiotic treatment must be prescribed. In the event of angina secondary to a virus, there is no risk of complication, therefore no need for antibiotics. A simple treatment to alleviate the symptoms is enough, paracetamol for example. The patient will spontaneously heal in 3 to 4 days.
Last thing, you should never use anti-inflammatory self-medication, such as ibuprofen for example, which is sold over-the-counter at pharmacies, it lowers immunity and promotes the occurrence of complications.