Probably, in our country over the past forty years there has not been a person who would not have faced the question - is it possible to wet Mantoux. Almost every family in which during this time there were children from 1 year to 16 years old, faced with this problem every year, because it is this diagnostic allergy test (and not vaccination, as most people used to say), is used in our country for early detection possible infection of the child with mycobacterium tuberculosis.
What is Mantou for?
The answer to this question can be given in a few short sentences, or you can enter into a discussion, which sometimes goes into a real hand-to-hand battle. And the “angry” medical workers converge in it, who consider the annual implementation of this procedure mandatory, and the “kind” relatives of the baby, who believe that it’s not necessary to know why they are doing Mantoux. In fact, everything is not so simple and unambiguous, and each parent whose child should be given such a diagnostic test should take a few minutes of his, certainly, precious time to understand: a small unpleasant procedure will help to detect a dangerous disease in time.
Many parents mistakenly believe that tuberculosis will never affect themselves, their relatives and friends, and certainly their child will never contact mycobacterium tuberculosis. In fact, this most insidious disease can infect the most successful and socially protected person, whom others can envy, and the child’s body, whose immune system has not yet fully formed, is even more likely to become infected. That is why, for the timely detection of the moment of infection, diagnostic tests or a mass fluorographic examination of the adult population are used.
Rules for the implementation of the "buttons"
But the question of whether it is possible to wet Mantu, its roots go back to the first half of the last century, when for the early detection of tuberculosis they used Pirke skin test, the ingress of water to which led to a distortion of the result. In the same case, when a Mantoux test is performed , purified tuberculin (an antigen existing in the mycobacterium tuberculosis), when properly manipulated, falls between the layers of the skin, resulting in the formation of a characteristic “button” on the surface of the epithelium.
Actually, the Mantoux test should be put annually to all children whose age has already reached 1 year and has not exceeded 16 years, respectively, at least 12 months should elapse between performing BCG vaccination and performing a diagnostic test. The first vaccination is given to the newborn before discharge from the maternity hospital, so the question of whether it is possible to wet Mantoux may arise in front of the baby's relatives only after his first birthday.
What can the Mantoux reaction say?
Talking about what should be the result of this test is possible only under the condition of constant monitoring of the child. If a child at the age of 1 year does not have a weakly positive reaction, this indicates that the vaccine itself was performed incorrectly and the desired goal - creating immunity from tuberculosis - was not achieved. Then this reaction (diagnostic test) is repeated annually. In cases where, for one reason or another, the child was not given BCG before being discharged from the maternity hospital, the first Mantoux test should be done at the age of 1 year and repeated once every 6 months.
To answer the question of whether it is possible to wet Mantoux, one must remember that the reaction will be evaluated precisely on the basis of changes in the skin, so getting water on the vaccine itself is, in principle, completely not dangerous, although the child can start combing the site of intradermal injection. The result of the diagnostic test can be influenced by both mechanical irritation, as a result of which redness inevitably occurs, and any skin diseases. That is why there are absolute and relative contraindications for the Mantoux reaction, which include allergic dermatitis and dermatosis, recent acute infectious diseases, including acute respiratory infections and acute respiratory viral infections.