Typhoid Fever and Its Treatment with Sensitivity Patterns of Various Antibiotics

Abstract

With an estimated 16-33 million cases of annually resulting in 500,000 to 600,000 deaths in endemic areas, the World Health Organization identifies typhoid as a serious public health problem. Its incidence is highest in children and young adults between 5 and 19 years old. Typhoid fever, also known as Salmonella Typhi or typhoid, is an illness. Commonly worldwide, it is transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with faeces from an infected person. The bacterium grows best at 37 °C/99 of - human body temperature. Typhoid fever is characterized by a sustained fever as high as 40°C (104 OF), profuse sweating, gastroenteritis, dehydration and nonbloody diarrhea. Diagnosis is made by any blood, bone marrow or stool cultures and with the Widal test (demonstration of salmonella antibodies against antigens O-somatic and H-flagella). Where resistance is common, the treatment of choice is a fluoroquinolone such as ciprofloxacin otherwise, a third-generation cephalosporin such as ceftriaxone or cefotaxime is the first choice. Cefixime is a suitable oral alternative. Typhoid fever in most cases is not fatal. Antibiotics, such as ampicillin, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, amoxicillin and ciprofloxacin, have been commonly used to treat typhoid fever in developed countries. Prompt treatment of the disease with antibiotics reduces the case-fatality rate to approximately 1 %. When untreated, typhoid fever persists for three weeks to a month. Death occurs in between 10% and 30% of untreated cases. Though in some case-fatality rates may be as high as 47%.