Typhoid fever can be treated with antibiotics. However, resistance to common antimicrobials is widespread. Healthy carriers should be excluded from handling food.
- Sanitation and hygiene are the critical measures that can be taken to prevent typhoid.
- Typhoid does not affect animals and therefore transmission occurs only from human to human.
- Typhoid can only spread in environments where human feces or urine are able to come into contact with food or drinking water.
- Careful food preparation and washing of hands are crucial to preventing typhoid.
- Typhoid fever in most cases is not fatal.
- Prompt treatment of the disease with antibiotics reduces the case-fatality rate to approximately 1%.
- When untreated, typhoid fever may persist for three weeks to a month.
- Resistance to common antibiotics is now common.
- Typhoid that is resistant to common antibiotics is known as multidrug-resistant typhoid (MDR typhoid).
- Ciprofloxacin resistance is an increasing problem, especially in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
- Azithromycin is a new drug for drug-resistant typhoid.
- Typhoid vaccine taken every three years is the best preventive approach.
Merinews Picks
