Group A streptococcal tonsillopharyngitis burden in a tertiary Turkish hospital.

Acute tonsillopharyngitis is a very common upper respiratory tract infection and might cause serious morbidity and even mortality if not handled properly. Although the etiologic agent is mostly viral, group A beta hemolytic streptococcus is the most important bacterial agent, with a frequency of 15-30% in the pediatric age group. In this article, as the social burden for this infection is notable and almost one-third of costs are estimated to be non-medical, we applied a questionnaire to the parents of 100 proven group A tonsillopharyngitis patients to describe the social cost of this infection.