Contents:
- Medical Video: Diphtheria: Causes, Symptoms, and Diagnosis
- Understand how diphtheria infects the body
- What are the risks of diphtheria complications?
- How to prevent diphtheria?
Medical Video: Diphtheria: Causes, Symptoms, and Diagnosis
Diphtheria is a bacterial infection that damages the nose and throat mucous membranes. This disease can spread through airborne particles when coughing or sneezing, and from skin contact with contaminated personal items. Touching a wound that is infected with the bacteria that causes it can also make you exposed to this disease.
If it is not handled properly, it not only risks transmitting the disease to other people, but also can lead to death. How come?
Understand how diphtheria infects the body
Diphtheria is caused by Corynebacterium bacteria. These bacteria can produce poisons that damage and kill tissues in the body, especially the mucous membranes of the throat and nose. The dead mucous membrane then thickens and changes color to gray.
Common symptoms that usually follow are sore throat and hoarseness, difficulty breathing and swallowing, runny nose, excessive drooling, chills, chills, and loud coughing. This series of symptoms is caused by bacterial toxins that are carried away into the bloodstream and damage the heart, kidneys, brain nervous system, and other healthy body tissues.
What are the risks of diphtheria complications?
At first diphtheria can not show significant symptoms. That's why many people who are actually infected can not realize that they are sick.
However, people infected with this disease must be treated quickly to prevent the risk of fatal complications and the spread of bacteria. Children and the elderly are more susceptible to complications from this disease. It is estimated that one in five and older people over 40 die from complications of diphtheria.
If not treated quickly and precisely, toxins produced by bacteriacan trigger several potentially life-threatening complications. Some of them include respiratory failure, inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis), heart failure, and severe internal bleeding that causes kidney failure.
Let it continue, diphtheria can cause shock (paler cold skin, heavy sweat, and palpitations) which leads to death.
How to prevent diphtheria?
This disease is very contagious. That's why diphtheria is more common in developing countries, where immunization rates are still low.
The most effective preventive step for this disease is with the DPT vaccine. This vaccine includes diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough). The DPT vaccine is included in the 5 compulsory immunizations for children in Indonesia. Provision of this vaccine is carried out 5 times when the child is 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, one and a half years, and five years.
This vaccination can protect children against diphtheria for life. However, for children who have not received this vaccine when they are babies, immediately get the Tdap vaccine at the age of 12 years. People who have recovered are also advised to receive the vaccine because they still have the risk of contracting the same disease again.
