Parenting nightmare: Kiss on the cheek causes child’s incurable infection

Enlarge / Herpes simplex virus, (HSV). Image taken with transmission electron microscopy. (credit: Getty | BSIP)

As the US Surgeon General recently highlighted, parenting is stressful. From navigating social media to facing a youth mental health crisis, challenges abound. But, for one father in Spain, even the simple, loving, everyday act of giving your child a peck on the cheek has turned to nightmare fuel.

According to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine, the man's 9-year-old daughter developed a fever along with a crusty, blistering lesion on her left cheek. Doctors initially diagnosed the blotch as impetigo, a bacterial infection on the skin's surface layers that is fairly common in children. It's often caused by Staphylococcus aureus or Streptococcus bacteria and is generally easily treated with antibiotics.