Question

Name the causative agent of typhoid in humans. Name the test administered to confirm the disease. How does a pathogen gain entry into the human body. Write the Diagnostic Symptoms and mention the body organs that get affected in severe cases?

Answer 1

Typhoid is a disease caused due to ingestion(it means something taken inside the body) of contaminated food and water by the causative organism of typhoid.

Complete Answer:
To completely understand typhoid let us gather the answer of questions step by step.
So, the causative organism or the causative agent of typhoid in humans is Salmonella typhi (Salmonella paratyphi causes paratyphoid) .
A Widal test is administered to confirm Typhoid. (Here mentioned, Widal test is carried out by 4 antigens- AH, BH, O and H. Among these, AH and BH detect Salmonella paratyphi and antigen O and H detect Salmonella typhi).
Generally, Salmonella typhi gains entry into the human body via ingestion of food and drink contaminated with the feces, urine or any other secretions of the patient suffering from typhoid.

The Diagnostic symptoms of typhoid are as follows:

1. Abdominal fever( it is just like the Hallmark for Typhoid)
2. step ladder fever (step ladder fever is the typical feature of typhoid, with each growing day the fever arises with the temperature of 1 Degree higher than the previous day)
3. rose spots become visible on skin.
   These are the main symptoms and other than these pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, headache and coated tongue are also the symptoms of typhoid.
   Now the last question is, which body organ is affected in severe cases. So, interestingly the answer to this question lies in the name of fever itself. The other name for Typhoid fever is enteric fever. It is called enteric because it affects the intestine the most. Hence, it is the intestine that gets affected in severe cases.

Note: While knowing about typhoid, it is important to note that -
Salmonella typhi colonizes in the gallbladder, biliary tree and urinary tract leading to a chronic carrier stage. This stage may lead to passage of urine and feces along with Salmonella typhi which may cause a carrier stage source of infection to others.