Bacteria are unicellular microorganisms without a nucleus. Their structure is much simpler than the structure of plant and animal cells . They can be found almost everywhere - in air, in soil, in water, and even in our digestive system. Bacteria are mostly harmless to humans, but some of them can cause diseases, including very dangerous ones. The bacteria that cause the disease are called pathogens. What is a bacterial infection and how is it dangerous for humans?
Any bacterium, no matter what they say about it, by itself cannot do much harm to the human body. Why was it always thought that a bacterial infection is caused by bacteria? After all, this is not entirely true.
All bacteria, despite their very small sizes, are still living organisms leading normal, in a way, life activity. Naturally, as a result of their very short life, they form some kind of waste products. In bacteria causing disease, these products are poisons in their chemical structure. It is these poisons, not the bacteria themselves, that cause the bacterial infection. They are called toxins. Each bacterium has its own specific ones. Every toxin affects the human body in its own way. It is from this that the symptoms of each specific disease depend.
A bacterial infection is caused by toxins that appear when the bacteria die. They are located inside the bacterial cell, and their release begins after the death of this cell. The destruction of bacteria in the human body occurs constantly: they have a very short life, immunity fights with them, they are destroyed during antibiotic treatment.
The toxins formed during the death of bacteria are called endotoxins. However, there are bacteria that can secrete toxins, but do not die. They are called exotoxins and at present they are the most dangerous poisons that cause such serious diseases as anthrax, diphtheria, botulism, tetanus, gas gangrene.
In some cases, some bacteria can simultaneously produce both endo- and exotoxins. The treatment of bacterial infections of a double plan is more complicated and requires a special approach. These are such unpleasant diseases as cholera, whooping cough, individual dysentery variants. Bacterial infection in children is also the result of exposure to toxins. They cause childhood diseases such as whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria.
The treatment of bacterial infection is quite simple, because now with the help of modern antibiotics it has become possible to more effectively deal with the vast majority of bacterial infections. Antibiotics come in two forms. The first type is organic substances based on microorganisms that can kill microbes. They have a bacteriostatic effect, they include various tetracyclines, chloramphenicol. The second type is antibacterial substances extracted from plant and animal cells. They are used both in tablets and in the form of injections, and have a bactericidal effect. These include penicillin, rifamycin, aminoglucosides.
However, antibiotics may not help in all cases. Exotoxic infections are precisely those infections against which antibiotics are powerless. In such cases, toxin neutralizing agents are used - a special antitoxic serum. But since serum can not be managed to be applied, the main emphasis is on prevention. This is, first of all, vaccinations that children do at an early age, for example, from tetanus and diphtheria. Various vaccinations are also given to adults. The essence of vaccinations is that they are actually very weak toxins. Introduced into the body, they produce antitoxin, help form immunity.