THE NEWS...
MANILA (Copyright 2008 The Associated Press) — More than 1,400 people have displayed typhoid symptoms in less than a month in a city near the Philippine capital, prompting authorities to declare a state of calamity, health officials said Wednesday.
MANILA (Copyright 2008 The Associated Press) — More than 1,400 people have displayed typhoid symptoms in less than a month in a city near the Philippine capital, prompting authorities to declare a state of calamity, health officials said Wednesday.
Extra medical teams have been sent to assist doctors and conduct disease surveillance in Calamba, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said.
Of 1,477 people with typhoid symptoms, 436 have been treated in the city's six hospitals and the rest in local community health centers since Feb. 16, said Dr. Dennis Labro, spokesman for the city's health office.
Only 37 of those cases have been confirmed with blood tests because the typhoid test is expensive, Labro said.
"So far there are no reported deaths, thank God," Labro said.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW...
Typhoid fever, also known as enteric fever or bilious fever, is an illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi. Common worldwide, it is transmitted by the fecal-oral route — the ingestion of food or water contaminated with feces from an infected person. Flying insects feeding on feces may occasionally transfer the bacteria through poor hygiene habits and public sanitation conditions. The bacteria then multiply in the blood stream of the infected person and are absorbed into the digestive tract and eliminated with the waste. A person may become an asymptomatic carrier of the bacteria, suffering no symptoms, but capable of infecting others. Diagnosis is made by blood, bone marrow or stool cultures and with the Widal test.
Typhoid fever in most cases is not fatal. Antibiotics , such as ampicillin, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (co-trimoxazole) and ciprofloxacin, have been commonly used to treat typhoid fever in developed countries. Prompt treatment of the disease with antibiotics reduces the case-fatality rate to approximately 1%.
When untreated, typhoid fever persists for three weeks to a month. Death occurs in between 10% and 30% of untreated cases.
Sanitation and hygiene are the critical measures that can be taken to prevent typhoid. Typhoid does not affect animals and therefore transmission is only from human to human. Typhoid can only spread in environments where human feces or urine are able to come into contact with food or drinking water. Careful food preparation and washing of hands are therefore crucial to preventing typhoid.
There are two vaccines currently recommended by the World Health Organization for the prevention of typhoid: these are the live, oral Ty21a vaccine (sold as Vivotif Berna®) and the injectable Vi capsular polysaccharide vaccine (sold as Typhim VI® and Typherix®). Both are between 50 to 80% protective and are recommended for travellers to areas where typhoid is endemic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_fever
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