Skip to main content

Serious Disease with little awareness- Melioidosis

An old disease that present almost exclusively in tropical area such as South East Asia region has long been known with little awareness especially in countries where little can be done to growth the bug. It's known as a serious disease with high mortality rate once it get into your blood and cause systemic symptoms, Melioidosis, caused by a fancy named bug Burkholderia Pseudomalei. It is primarily found in soil and water of such area.

How dose the bug get into your body?
Humans get the infection by inhalation of contaminated dust or water droplets, ingestion of contaminated water, and contact with contaminated soil, especially through wounds on the skin.
Human to human transmission is very rare, and only a few cases have reported.

Where will it go in your body?
Once the bug gets into your body, it can affect almost every organ systems. However, mortality and morbidity varies between organs involved. The highest mortality rate occurs with systemic involvement such as sepsis (the bug is circulating in your blood) while local infection such as infection of your salivary gland without systemic involvement caused low mortality.

Signs and Symptoms:
Depending on where the infection is on your body, the clinical manifestations can be:
  • Fever
  • Swelling and pain
  • Abscess or ulceration
  • Cough and dyspnea
  • Headache
  • Anorexia
  • Lethargy

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chickenpox

Chickenpox is considered as a disease of children because most people get infected when they are young. However, it can affect people of any age if they haven't had it before or vaccinated. It is caused by Varicella zoster virus which cause itchy rashes, fluid-filled everywhere on the body. Chickenpox is mild disease and will disappear by itself within one week without any specific treatment. Before rashes appear, there are nonspecific symptoms like: Feeling of weakness Lost of appetite Muscles pain Fever and  Nausea Very small amount of people get complications from chickenpox such as: Secondary skin infection on the previous lesions Infection of the joint Lung tissue inflammation Brain inflammation You should go to hospital when you have anything like: The rash become redness and painful with swelling Severe joint pain with persistent fever Chest pain with difficulty in breathing Severe headache with vomiting

HOW TO STOP NOSEBLEEDS

Have you ever had nosebleeds? How often ? And what did you do to stop it? Do you think it is serious? Most people have nosebleeds and most of them stopped after a several minutes but some are not. Here is the effective way to stop nosebleeds: 1- Sit quietly. 2-Blow the nose gently to remove mucus and blood. 3- Pinch the nose firmly for ten minutes or until the bleeding has stopped. If this does not control the bleeding, start 4- packing the nostril with a wad of cotton, leaving part of it outside the nose. If possible, first wet the cotton with hydrogen peroxide or lidocaine with epinephrine. 5- Then pinch the nose firmly again for ten minutes or more Note: Do not tip the head back!!

Stray dog bite: Rabies

Stray dogs are very common in some parts of the world especially in the developing countries. Not all the stray dogs are dangerous, however, it is always be safe to be away from them. One of the reasons is that, you never know whether the dog is sick or not. Dog bite is hurt, of course, but it can be life danger if the dog that bite you is infected with rabies virus. Rabid dogs carry the virus inside their saliva and can transmit to you when you got bitten or even scratch ( the dogs lick their foot very frequent and the virus can stay on their foot and transmit via scratching). Fortunately, post exposure prophylaxis vaccination is very effective to prevent rabies and it is widely available. Here are some steps to do after dog bite: Clean the wound immediately with clean water and soap Do not try to apply any herbal medicine (a lot of belief do that) as it can cause the wound to be infected Go to the nearest health facilities and discuss about possibility of vaccination aga...