ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Scarlet fever is a streptococcal disease characterized by a skin rash in children. It can be endemic, epidemic or sporadic. In April 2012, the headmaster of a primary school in Granada reported an outbreak of scarlet fever in the school. OBJECTIVE: To describe an outbreak of scarlet fever, analyse its epidemiological and clinical characteristics, and present the preventive measures taken to control it. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A case-control study was conducted using an ad hoc questionnaire, developed for this purpose. The R program, Epidat 3.1 and Microsoft Excel were used for the statistics analysis. RESULTS: There were 13 cases and 30 controls. The attack rate was 3.9%. There was a statistically significant difference for the variable "relative affected". CONCLUSION: There has been a confirmed outbreak of person-to-person transmitted scarlet fever, and the main risk factor was having a relative with tonsillitis.