Perhaps one of the most dangerous intestinal infections is salmonellosis in children. This disease can develop at any time of the year, but it most often occurs in the warm season, when the most favorable environment for the development of the pathogen is created.
Salmonellosis is an infectious disease characterized by an acute onset. Its clinical manifestations can be anything from carriage to vivid clinical symptoms with the development of infectious shock.
Causes of the disease
Salmonellosis is caused by gram-negative salmonella bacillus, which has many serotypes. Microbiologists know about two thousand of them. This is a mobile microorganism that can multiply in different environments. The stick is quite stable in the environment and can long and successfully exist in food, and in some it multiplies without changing the organoleptic properties of the product.
Penetrating into the digestive tract, the pathogen bypasses the acidic environment of the stomach and is localized in the mucosa of the small intestine. The wand secretes a dangerous toxin, which is carried by the blood throughout the body, causing a variety of clinical manifestations. The main signs of salmonellosis are symptoms of gastroenteritis with the occurrence of dehydration. Salmonellosis in children is therefore dangerous because the child quickly loses water, which can lead to a shock state. Therefore, you need to carefully monitor the correct replenishment of the lost fluid.
How to diagnose salmonellosis? Symptoms, treatment and prevention of the disease
The latent period of the disease can be very short and amount to several hours from the moment the sticks enter the body. Sometimes it is two to three days. Further, the child begins to complain of malaise, fatigue, becomes irritable or, conversely, excessively lethargic. His temperature rises to high numbers (40-41 ° C), there may be muscle pain, later nausea and frequent vomiting appear. A few hours later, diarrhea joins, which is repeated up to twenty times a day, exhausting and dehydrating the child. In addition, salts and electrolytes are lost with diarrhea. Salmonellosis in young children quickly leads to dehydration. The skin becomes flabby due to loss of water, loses its elasticity (turgor), the skin fold during the study is straightened slowly. The eyes of such children are sunken, the voice is husky, diuresis is reduced.
In its course and severity of manifestations, the disease has several forms. First of all, this is uncomplicated salmonellosis, which may not manifest itself in any way, or the child may feel minor symptoms of dyspepsia. These symptoms disappear without any special treatment in one to two days.
The most severe is the septic form of the disease, characterized by high irregular type fever and severe intoxication. Such salmonellosis in children can be complicated by meningitis, in which neurological symptoms come to the fore. This form of the disease requires urgent treatment in a resuscitation setting. Mortality in this case remains high.
There is a known colitic variant of the course of salmonellosis, the clinic of which resembles colitis. It is characterized by spastic, cramping pains throughout the abdomen, rumbling, diarrhea, in which there are very often streaks of blood and mucus.
In the diagnosis, the epidemiological prerequisites are important (mass poisoning and association with a particular product). Also a diagnostic criterion is the allocation of the pathogen from biomaterial or food.
Treatment of salmonellosis in children is carried out in the ward or in the intensive care unit of the infectious diseases hospital. It all depends on the severity of the disease. Be sure to reduce the absorption of the toxin into the blood. For this, gastric lavage is carried out using a probe and enema cleansing of the intestine. A variety of sorbents are used. The next step is to replenish the body with fluid and electrolytes. After this, a catheter is inserted through which saline or glucose is constantly dripped, taking into account physiological losses. Antibacterial therapy is necessarily used, multivitamins are prescribed.
Timely treatment started in most cases provides a positive result.