Many of us have experienced in life such an intestinal disease as salmonellosis. High fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, frequent trips to the toilet - this is what happens when salmonella enters the human body. Let us examine in more detail what kind of pathology it is, in what cases it occurs, what forms salmonellosis takes. The incubation period, the prevention of the disease will also be covered in the materials of the article.
What is salmonellosis?
Salmonellosis is an intestinal infectious disease, which is characterized by intoxication of the body of varying degrees and damage to the digestive tract. Pathology is caused by special microbes of the genus Salmonella, which enter the human body in several ways:
- with food,
- from a sick animal,
- from an infected person (who is sick or is a carrier of the bacteria).
The incubation period forsalmonellosis is on average one day. This intestinal disease is quite insidious, because at first it may not manifest itself sufficiently, and a person, hoping for a speedy recovery, does not pay due attention to his treatment.
A mild form of salmonellosis is manifested by a barely noticeable malaise, a slight disorder of the stool. However, there are more severe cases of the course of the disease, which are manifested by high fever, loose stools, repeated vomiting, severe abdominal pain, and headache.
It happens that Salmonella activity in the human body can cause loss of consciousness, convulsions, prolonged fever, lead to an increase in internal organs - the spleen, liver - and the formation of purulent foci in them.
Microbes of the genus Salmonella
Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped bacteria up to 7 microns long and up to 0.7 microns wide. Microorganisms are pathogenic for humans and animals, they usually live in the intestines. They are very unpretentious, develop and grow on elementary nutrient media.
Getting into the human body, the bacterium begins to show activity, but not immediately. The incubation period for salmonellosis in adults ranges from 6 hours to three days.
Bacteria are perfectly preserved in the external environment:
- in the soil - up to a year and a half,
- water - up to 5 months.
Salmonella also feel good in food. Their vitality theysave:
- in cheeses - up to 1 year,
- frozen meat - about 6 months,
- butter - up to 4 months,
- meat products - 2 to 4 months,
- kefir and beer - up to 2 months,
- milk - up to 20 days.
Destructive for salmonella is ultraviolet and heat: when heated to a temperature of 55 ° C, the bacterium dies after 1.5 hours, to a temperature of 60 ° C - within 12 minutes. However, salmonella is not completely killed by freezing.
In some foods, such as milk or meat, Salmonella not only persists but also multiplies.
Why does salmonellosis occur?
The most common way humans become infected with salmonellosis is through contaminated food. It is noteworthy that salmonella living in contaminated food does not change its appearance and taste. Infection of animal products (eggs, meat) occurs for various reasons:
- in case of improper or forced slaughter of animals;
- in case of violation of the rules for food storage and cooking (for example, when finished products come into contact with raw meat);
- with weak heat treatment of products (steaks with blood, etc.);
- through the eggs of sick birds, especially duck eggs.
The most favorable environment for bacterial activity is food with a liquid and jelly-like consistency - aspic dishes, creams, salads. Especially dangerous is the use of these products in the warm season:According to statistics, it is in the summer, in the heat, that the incidence of salmonellosis increases many times over.
There are several forms of pathology:
- gastrointestinal (gastrointestinal),
- typhoid,
- septic,
- asymptomatic,
- carrier.
Gastrointestinal form
This form of the disease is the most common. The incubation period of salmonellosis, the symptoms of which appear quickly and very brightly, is the time when a person has already become infected, but there are no signs of the disease yet. First, weakness and headaches, dizziness, high body temperature, chills appear.
Next, the first symptoms of damage to the digestive tract occur - pain in the stomach, in the navel; vomiting with noticeable remnants of food, later - with an admixture of bile; diarrhea with greenish stools and mucus. There are also visual signs of salmonellosis: a white coating appears on the patient's tongue, dryness in the mouth, bloating, which causes pain on palpation.
Diarrhea in the gastrointestinal form of salmonellosis lasts for several days and usually has unpleasant consequences: dehydration occurs with the loss of mineral s alts, the patient may have low blood pressure and seizures, sometimes the nervous system is affected - fainting and dizziness occur.
With timely treatment, the patient becomes much better already on the fifth day, but complete recovery usually occurs by the endsecond week.
Typhoid and septic forms
Typhoid-like and septic forms of salmonellosis have a more severe clinical picture.
Very similar to the manifestations of the gastrointestinal type of pathology is a typhoid-like form of the disease. Such salmonellosis (the incubation period in humans is also called latent, or hidden) is also initially characterized by weakness and high body temperature. Further, the nature of the disease becomes similar to typhoid fever, a person develops a prolonged (within a week) fever, confusion and possible hallucinations. A rash appears on the patient's abdomen, the tongue acquires a gray-brown color, the skin becomes very pale, the abdomen is noticeably swollen. Complete recovery of the patient with this form of salmonellosis occurs no earlier than 1-1.5 months of competent therapy.
The septic form of the disease is extremely rare. Basically, signs of the disease can occur in people with a weakened immune system, in newborns and in the elderly. The course of the disease is accompanied by prolonged fever, severe sweating, jaundice, and the formation of inflammatory processes in the organs. This course of the disease often ends in death.
Asymptomatic and bacterial carriers
Asymptomatic is considered a form of salmonellosis in which a small amount of bacteria enters the human body and the immune system independently copes with foreign microorganisms.
Bacteriocarrier is a condition in which the person himself does not get sick, howeverexcretes salmonella in the faeces for a period of time (usually no more than three months).
What happens in the body?
Salmonellosis develops within three days from the moment the bacterium enters the human body. The first 6-8 hours the disease does not manifest itself.
Salmonella, getting inside the stomach with food, meets the first natural obstacle on its way - an acidic environment, due to which it is difficult for bacteria to move on. However, if the immune forces of the body are insufficient, salmonella enters the small intestine. Some of the bacteria die, and endotoxin is released. At this moment, the first manifestations of the disease appear in a person.
Those bacteria that have not died settle in the small intestine and attack its wall, while releasing a toxin. There is a loss of water through the intestines, the nervous system is affected, and vascular tone is disturbed. Salmonella gradually enter the bloodstream, through which they spread throughout the body and penetrate the kidneys, lungs, lymph nodes, spleen, where they settle.
If a person's immunity is strong, at the next stage, salmonella dies, otherwise fresh foci of inflammation form - a typhoid-like or septic form of pathology develops.
It is known that salmonellosis is extremely dangerous for babies. The incubation period in children is the same as in adults, but in most cases the course of the disease is much more severe, and treatment is more difficult. As the child grows older, his immunity grows stronger, and susceptibility to salmonella is noticeabledeclining.
Diagnosis
Diagnosis of salmonellosis begins with an external examination of the patient. The doctor fixes the symptoms that may indicate the presence of a disease in a person, determines the general state of his he alth, prescribes bacteriological tests and serological studies.
The material used is not only blood and urine, but also vomit, feces, bile, stomach water obtained during the washing procedure.
The correct diagnosis of salmonellosis is incredibly important, since untimely treatment does not give a person a complete recovery, and the pathological condition often takes a severe form and leads to the development of an inflammatory process in the peritoneum (peritonitis), joints (polyarthritis) or causes an infectious-toxic shock.
Therapy should be started as soon as the first suspicion of salmonellosis appears (incubation period). Treatment of the disease, as a rule, occurs on an outpatient basis. Hospitalization for salmonellosis is optional. However, the hospital is indicated for children, the elderly, food industry workers, as well as for a severe form of the disease.
Treatment
Salmonellosis treatment is a complex process that combines several areas:
- antibacterial therapy to fight salmonella;
- rehydration of the body through special solutions to restore the volume of fluid lost with diarrhea and vomiting;
- drugs forstopping the process of intoxication of the body;
- restoration of microflora in the intestine;
- following a special diet in nutrition;
- general strengthening activities.
In the fight against bacteria, drugs that are derivatives of penicillin, as well as fluoroquinolones, are used. Due to the ability of Salmonella to quickly get used to antibiotics, the use of other drugs, such as tetracyclines and aminoglycosides, is often limited. There is a rule that antibiotics are not prescribed for mild illness or if there is no blood in the stool.
To eliminate the consequences of intoxication of the body, enterosorbents are used, for example, activated carbon, Enterosgel, Polysorb. Antispasmodics ("No-Shpa") help relieve pain.
If the patient's age approaches the elderly, and also if there is a history of chronic diseases of the stomach or intestines, it is recommended to take enzyme preparations such as Pancreatin or Festal.
Restoring the amount of lost fluid in the body is of great importance. In addition to water, it is useful to use fruit drinks, compotes, weak tea.
Together with drug therapy, traditional medicine recipes are often used. In the first days of the disease, products containing tannins are used - pomegranate peels, bird cherry berries, oak bark. Later, you can add a technique to the above means.anti-inflammatory herbs - calendula, chamomile, strawberries, sage.
Diet for salmonellosis
Diet is of great importance in the treatment of salmonellosis. In the first days of illness, milk and dairy products are excluded from the diet.
The patient is contraindicated in food that has an irritating effect on the gastrointestinal tract: foods saturated with coarse fibers, fiber; canned foods; pickles; spicy and fried food. This measure should be carried out not only during treatment, but also a month after recovery.
Excluded products that stimulate the processes of fermentation and putrefaction in the intestines. These include vegetables, fruits, fast carbohydrates - muffins, baked goods.
Alternatively, the patient is advised to consume low-fat soups (for example, pureed vegetables), steamed meat or lean fish; soft-boiled eggs or scrambled eggs; porridge cooked on water, and not on milk, cottage cheese, dosed - butter; crackers; jelly; dried fruit compotes, tea.
If the baby is sick, it is not recommended to stop breastfeeding.
Prevention measures
Prevention of salmonellosis comes down to following simple rules known to everyone:
- Do not eat meat that has not passed the control of the relevant sanitary services.
- Meat must be cooked for at least two hours if cooked in one large piece.
- Duck eggs should not be eaten raw - they should be boiled for at least a quarter of an hour.
- Eggs should be washed before cooking scrambled eggs. Hands should be thoroughly washed after handling eggshells.
- A kitchen should have at least two cutting boards, one for meat and one for everything else.
- Do not store raw meat in the refrigerator in close proximity to other foods.
- Only tap (or boiled) water can be used for drinking and washing fruit.
- Swimming during the warm season should only be in places allowed for this, because you can get infected with salmonellosis by simply taking a sip of water from a pond while swimming.
- Children are at risk because the protective properties of the child's body is weaker than that of an adult. The task of parents is to teach the child the correct handling of animals and birds.
Thus, we can summarize all of the above. In this article, we reviewed the main points regarding salmonellosis, an intestinal disease caused by the Salmonella bacterium.
Because the causative agent of pathology enters the body with food, as well as from an infected person or animal, we should carefully monitor what we eat and how we behave in society and with pets.
From the materials of the article it is obvious that medicine knows several forms that salmonellosis takes. The incubation period, the causes of the disease in adults and children are the same, but babies are more difficult to tolerate the course of salmonellosis. This is due to the peculiarities of the children's immune system.system.
To treat the disease should be resorted to immediately. Therapy for salmonellosis is a multicomponent one, aimed both at stopping the activity of bacteria in the body, and at restoring he alth after dehydration of the body and disturbance of the intestinal microflora due to diarrhea, vomiting, feverish conditions.
