‘It is shameful’: why the return of Victorian-era diseases to the UK alarms health experts | Health

Before Covid-19, Dr Farzana Hussain says, it was rare for her to see a case of scabies at her GP surgery in Newham, east London, but since the pandemic, the number of patients with the parasitic skin infection has increased dramatically.

“By the time a patient comes to me for advice, everyone in the family has it, including all the children,” she says. “The itch is maddening. People demand immediate treatment.”

Transmitted by tiny mites that burrow and lay eggs under the skin, scabies is a disease associated with squalor and overcrowding. Spread by close personal contact, it is so…