Dysentery, also known as the disease of dirty hands, is an infectious disease. Its symptoms include diarrhea with an admixture of blood, fever, and, less frequently, vomiting. Untreated dysentery can be fatal. Find out why dysentery is such a dangerous disease and how to treat dysentery.

Dysenteryis caused by different speciesdysentery( Shigella ). The source of infection is contact with a sick person or contaminated food.

The bacterium spreads along with the excretion of feces by carriers (carriers are people who have had the disease, but have not treated it - they themselves have no symptoms of infection, but their stools contain pathogenic bacteria) and sick people, and to infection it usually comes from dirty hands, through infected food or groundwater.

Shigellainfects salads, raw vegetables, milk and dairy products, poultry and groundwater in the immediate vicinity. Unlike salmonella, it only takes a few bacteria to get infected.

Dysentery infections are most common in the summer and mostly in hot, tropical climates with difficult hygienic conditions, although the bacterium can be infected all over the world.

Diarrhea symptoms: blood-filled diarrhea and fever

Shigella produces toxins: enterotoxin and the so-called Shiga toxin. Most cases are mild, with mild diarrhea with no blood added.

In other people, symptoms of the disease appear within a dozen or so hours of infection, and they are frequent (up to several dozen a day), but not abundant, watery stools with an accompanying painful feeling of urgency.

After the initial period of diarrhea accompanied by high fever (38-39 degrees C), weakness, colitis usually develops within 24 hours.

A bowel movement can be painful, with mucus and a small amount of blood and pus. The disease can be diagnosed by performing a bacteriological examination of the feces. Some people may develop complications and complications - circulatory disturbances and shock from dehydration, which are the most vulnerable in children and the elderly.

Important

Amoebic dysentery

Apart from bacterial dysentery, there is also, but much less frequently, amoebiasis - amoebic dysentery. This parasite is presentaround the world, but people traveling to tropical and subtropical zones are particularly vulnerable.

Untreated amoebiasis can become chronic, lasting up to many years, or be fatal.

Complication of amoeba dysentery may include perforation of the large intestine wall and liver abscess.

Treatment of amoebic dysentery is based on the administration of antiprotozoal drugs and lasts at least 10 days.

Treatment of dysentery: antibiotics, electrolytes and water

In the case of dysentery, the problem is not so much the disease itself, but its rapid spread, which is particularly dangerous in large groups of people, e.g. in camps, colonies, in dormitories. Therefore, infections caused by dysentery bacilli are treated with antibiotics, because only in this way you can avoid a local epidemic.

Severe diarrhea accompanied by dehydration always requires hospitalization and intravenous irrigation. If the course of the disease is mild, the patient can stay at home. It is necessary to drink enough fluids, an adult may need even 3-4 liters a day.

Patients must also take an electrolyte mixture (available from pharmacies). After 2-3 days of fasting, the sick person may start to eat - at first only gruels, light broths and porridges, then potatoes, boiled carrots, veal, buns.

Raw fruit and vegetables can be introduced into the diet after recovery (we can talk about it if three fecal cultures collected after the end of treatment do not show the presence of bacteria).

Dysentery prevention - dirty hands disease

Prevention consists in following the rules of personal hygiene, washing hands before eating, careful washing of vegetables and fruits, proper storage of food (protection against insects).

You can drink water only from known and researched sources. It is also necessary to isolate the patient and his feces. In addition to observing hygiene, prophylaxis requires sanitary supervision over sewage, water supply, wells and food, as well as observing employee examinations and preventing people with diarrhea and carriers from working in places related to food (hotel and school kitchens, etc.), food processing and distribution.

You must do it

Go to the doctor if:

  • your toddler has diarrhea
  • you have severe diarrhea,
  • diarrhea lasts more than two days,

Rapid medical intervention requires:

  • diarrhea leading to weakness, drowsiness, apathy and dehydration with increased heart rate above 100 / minute,
  • blood or pus instool with leg cramps and severe abdominal pain.

Category:

Infectious diseases