\n Otley announced that its away match against Hull Ionians has been rescheduled after a number of players were required to isolate.\n<\/p>\n
\n This was after an outbreak of “scrum pox”.\n<\/p>\n
\n A statement published by the club said: “The away match against Hull Ionians at the weekend (October 17\/18) has been postponed to November 28 due to an outbreak of the highly contagious skin infection, scrum pox (similar to a cold sore outbreak), at Otley, requiring isolation to avoid a public health issue – players’ welfare being our primary concern.”\n<\/p>\n
Supporters surprised by return of little-known condition<\/p>\n
\n The announcement prompted a wave of reaction online, with many fans saying they had not heard of scrum pox for decades.\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite its unfamiliar name, the condition has a long history within rugby and has been associated with close contact between players during scrums.\n<\/p>\n
\n The infection is most commonly linked to forwards and front-row players, whose frequent face-to-face contact can increase the risk of transmission.\n<\/p>\n
What exactly is scrum pox?<\/p>\n
\n According to a 1979 study published in the British Medical Journal, scrum pox is a herpes simplex virus infection spread through close physical contact during rugby matches.\n<\/p>\n
\n Researchers found the condition was often mistaken for impetigo and noted that outbreaks were most commonly associated with forwards involved in scrums.\n<\/p>\n
\n The study concluded that isolating infected players was important to prevent transmission and reduce the risk of wider outbreaks within squads.\n<\/p>\n
Club moved quickly to isolate affected players<\/p>\n
\n Speaking to the Telegraph & Argus, Otley RUFC press officer Nick Doyle said the decision to postpone the match was made to allow affected players time to isolate.\n<\/p>\n
\n “We’ve obviously postponed the match, so we could isolate the players,” he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n He stressed that the outbreak was limited to players and was not something local residents needed to be concerned about.\n<\/p>\n
‘It’s a front row issue’<\/p>\n
\n Mr Doyle said he was not aware of any players requiring serious medical treatment.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said: “As far as I’m aware, it’s just a case of isolation… It’s a front row issue more than anything, I think.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The club first became aware of the outbreak last week, according to Mr Doyle.\n<\/p>\n
\n He added that he had not been given details about how the infection had originated and could not comment on whether it had been passed between players during training or matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Otley announced that its away match against Hull Ionians has been rescheduled after a number of players were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-807826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}