2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21
Diphtheria is an acute infectious disease caused by Corynebacterium. It is also called "diphtheria bacillus". Diphtheria in a child is especially dangerous. The symptoms of this disease are expressed by damage to the upper respiratory tract and general intoxication of the body.
Let's make a reservation right away: self-treatment is dangerous for a child's life! At the first suspicion of this disease, immediately consult a doctor!Before describing how diphtheria occurs in a child, the symptoms and methods of its treatment, let's understand what this infection is.
How can you get infected?
Transmission route - airborne, from a sick person. Rarely can you get infected from the items he used. There are also massive cases of human infection, for example through contaminated dairy products. If ten days have passed since the moment of infection, the person is considered contagious until the time when the causative agent of the disease is not removed from the body. This can only be determined by bacteriologicalresearch.
The most common age at which children get diphtheria is three to seven years. Babies are not at risk of infection - they have immunity received from the mother through the placenta. The older the child, the lower his protection against this disease.
Infection penetrates through the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth, sometimes the mucous membranes of the eyes and genitals are damaged, as well as areas of injured skin. The causative agent of the disease gets on them and forms a film.
Symptoms
The main signs of diphtheria in children are inflammation. They may be different depending on the type:
- diphtheria inflammation is located in the oropharynx, the film adheres tightly to the tissues and is difficult to separate.
- croupous inflammation usually affects the trachea and larynx. The film lies on the surface and is easily detachable.
So you think the baby has diphtheria. The symptoms of this disease are usually:
1. The defeat of the oral region and pharynx, rarely the nose, trachea or larynx. In exceptionally rare cases, damage affects the skin, ear and eyes.
2. Diphtheria croup (severe cough): isolated, affecting only the upper respiratory tract, or coexisting with other lesions (eg, airways plus nose and oropharynx).
3. Increase in body temperature to 38 degrees.
4. General malaise.
5. Dry cough and hoarseness, which in a day or two develop into bouts of barking rough cough, breathing becomes difficult and noisy, and the voice mayan abyss.
If diphtheria progresses in a child, the symptoms become more severe - the patient does not sleep or eat, behaves restlessly, his face shows fear and anxiety. The skin becomes gray, the child suffocates, cold sweat emerges. The temperature drops below normal. There is involuntary urination and convulsions, the child may die from lack of oxygen.
Therefore, it is very important to consult a doctor in time, who will diagnose and immediately begin treatment of diphtheria. In children with timely seeking medical help, the course of the disease will stop already on the first day, and the next day there will be a noticeable improvement in the condition: breathing will become even, and the cough will be rare and mild. The voice will be restored only after 4-6 days.
How to treat?
Treatment is carried out permanently with bed rest. Antidiphtheria serum is introduced, antibiotics are prescribed (preparations of the group of macrolides, aminopenicillins, cephalosporins of the 3rd generation are used: medicines "Cefalexin", "Cefazolin", "Cefaclor", "Cefuroxime", "Midecamycin", "Azithromycin", "Penicillin"). The duration of antibiotic therapy is from 5 to 10 days. In severe cases of the disease, hormonal treatment is performed.
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