. A male student that attends a 4 year College majoring in Arts and music felt s
ID: 50442 • Letter: #
Question
. A male student that attends a 4 year College majoring in Arts and music felt sick for a day with diarrhea he took some medication and felt fine. 8 days later he had a second round of diarrhea this time it was much worse and lasted most of the day. Again with somewhat more medication he was fine. 5 days later he had a 3rd round of diarrhea that was much worse and included vomiting. He was bed ridden the next day his symptoms continued with fever.
1. What disease does he have? Name the causative agent.
2. How did he become infected with this microbe? Explain the pathogenesis of this disease.
3. What is the virulence factor and how would you treat this disea
4. How would the immune system deal with this case and why?
5. Why Doctors could only treat the symptoms before and not the disease and why death may result from it?
Explanation / Answer
The patient suffered with diarrhea and got cured with the intake of medicines but again had the same symptoms. Next time he took some medicines (not specified in the question) and after some days he again caught the infection. All these sequences shows that the patient's immunity is weakened.
Ans 1:
The patient may have gastroenteritis. There are many types of bacteria which cause gastroenteritis. These are
Campylobacter jejuni
E. coli
Salmonella spp
Shigella spp
Staphylococcus spp and Yersinia spp
Ans 2:
The common cause of gastroenteritis is to eat the contaminated food. The meat is not properly cooked. The water used for drinking may be contaminated with human and animal waste. The food contaminated with the bacteria trigger the symptoms. These bacteria produce toxin which are also responsible for gastroenteritis.
Pathogenesis:
Some bacteria enter the gastrointestinal tract and attach to the lining (intestinal mucosa) secrete the toxins known as enterotoxins. These bacteria do not attack the cells of the intestinal mucosa. These toxins lead to malabsorption of nutrients and cause the mucosal cells to secrete electrolytes and water (secretory diarrhea). Bacterial toxins that are present in contaminated foods (exotoxins) also causes secretory diarrhea with nausea and vomiting.
Ans 3: The virulence factor in this case for the diarrhea is the toxin produced by bacteria.
Treatments can be decided after examining stool samples. Usually antibiotics and antidiarrheal drugs are not required. This depends on the individual case. Intake of probiotics and oral hydration therapy is important.
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