(Thea Jourdan/ Daily Mail) — When Joanna Birch-Phaure felt the beginnings of a sore throat, she was merely annoyed to have caught a bug just before going on holiday.
‘But I told myself the sunshine would make me feel better,’ says Joanna, 36, who lives in London with her husband Ashley, 34.
It didn’t – and within a few days of arriving in Tenerife with her friends in September 2013, the skin around Joanna’s feet had started to bubble and blister.
Once back in Britain, the rash spread dramatically all over her legs, stomach, arms, hands and face, leaving her skin feeling itchy and horribly dry.
Feeling ‘achey and fluey’, she saw her GP, whose diagnosis was far from what she had been expecting.
‘He took one look at me and told me I had scarlet fever,’ says Joanna, who works for development charity Pump Aid. (…)