Whooping cough: symptoms, prevention and treatment
Pertussis has long been one of the most dangerous diseases of respiratory ways of the child, which has led to a lethal outcome. That all changed with the advent of an effective vaccine, but outbreaks of contagious and communicable disease found in the modern world.
However, they are not so common, and these cases are caused by a weakened immune system of the child. It should also be noted that, despite the fact that in medicine, whooping cough is commonly classified as a disease that affects only the body of the child, there are cases when respiratory infection affects already an adult.
The causative agent of the disease are the bacteria Bordetella pertussis. Rapid and large spread is due to the fact that the bacterium is transmitted by airborne droplets, which opens for her a wide field of activity."
Once the bacterium enters the human body, it settles on the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, causing the beginning of the inflammatory process. Resulted in the commencement of inflammation begins to form pus, which disrupts the respiratory tract, causing suffocation.
The first signs of pertussis can be detected in the next two weeks, this is the time period from the incubation period of the disease, during which it begins to show signs of development and destruction of the body.
It should be noted that the carrier of the whooping cough is contagious from 1 to 25 day. This period should be a quarantine, and then the infection can be localized in only one patient. Simply isolate the patient to prevent the spread of bacteria through the air, and can with great certainty say that the epidemic can be avoided. This is especially true in the case of schools and pre-schools, where the infection is easily willing to accept the size of the local epidemic.
The symptoms of whooping cough
The first sign of infection is the increase in temperature and cough. It is important to carefully treat them, as they initially can be confused with a simple cold. Here you can see a decrease in appetite, appearance of cold.
Whooping cough helps to bring out the cough, which becomes every day more powerful and with it a person can start to experience cramps. At first the cough is pretty weak, but its intensity is growing.
Coughing can lead to the fact that the difficulty breathing, especially often this symptom can be observed in children after severe coughing with spasms. Coughing can lead to vomiting urges, so strong are the cramps.
To determine the pertussis also help the external signs that manifest in strong excitation of the patient. Cough leads not only to spasm may begin to turn blue in the face, swellthe veins in the neck. Often one can observe the appearance of blood in the mucus during a cough, may also be bleeding from the nose.
The most difficult is the period in the first two weeks, when such strong attacks can happen 40-50 times a day. After 2-4 weeks of the disease, frequency of cough and its passage is reduced.
Diagnosis and treatment
Diagnosis of pertussis is complicated enough and this is due to the fact that its initial symptoms are erased and much may resemble a simple respiratory illness. In addition, the main symptoms manifest gradually, and again may be falsely mistaken for other illnesses.
Once the disease becomes a form of spasmodic cough, the diagnosis can already be delivered with a high probability of accuracy. However, for a precise definition of disease is necessary for microbiological examination, after which you can already schedule a treatment.
Because the disease appears to be incredibly contagious at the first symptoms is required of the patient to isolate the child, the child should not go to school or preschool.
Treatment involves the use of antibiotics. In addition to their treatment can attend the cough, calming, sedative. For example, in the first stage, if the whooping was able to quickly diagnose, may be used immunoglobulin.
Be sure to ventilate the room, which will be patient, and take your vitamins. Special attention should be surprise diet during treatment. Here we are talking not only about diet, namely that food should be complete and contain all the necessary nutrients, proteins, carbohydrates, amino acids.
It is important that along with pertussis should always be treated and attached to the infection, and therefore, treatment is always associated with immunomodulatory drugs that will inhibit viral infection.