190 Where There Is No Doctor 2011
Prevention of typhoid: (continued)
♦ To avoid the spread of typhoid, a person who has the disease should stay in
a separate room. No one else should eat or drink from the dishes he uses. His
stools should be burned or buried in deep holes. Persons who care for him
should wash their hands right afterwards.
♦ After recovering from typhoid some persons still carry the disease and can
spread it to others. So anyone who has had typhoid should be extra careful with
personal cleanliness and should not work in restaurants or where food is handled.
Sometimes ampicillin is effective in treating typhoid carriers.
TYPHUS
Typhus is an illness similar to but different from typhoid. The infection is transmitted
by bites of:
lice ticks
rat fleas
Signs:
• Typhus begins like a bad cold. After a week or more fever begins, with chills,
headache, and pain in the muscles and chest.
• After a few days of fever a typical rash appears, first in the armpits and then on
the body, then the arms and legs (but not on the face, palms of the hands, or
soles of the feet). The rash looks like many tiny bruises.
• The fever lasts 2 weeks or more. Typhus is usually mild in children and very
severe in old people. An epidemic form of typhus is especially dangerous.
• In typhus spread by ticks, there is often a large painful sore at the point of the
bite, and the lymph nodes near the bite are swollen and painful.
Treatment:
♦ If you think someone may have typhus, get medical advice. Special tests are
often needed.
♦ Give tetracycline, adults: 2 capsules of 250 mg. 4 times a day for 7 days (see
p. 355). Chloramphenicol also works, but is riskier (p. 356).
Prevention:
♦ Keep clean. De‑louse the whole family regularly.
♦ Remove ticks from your dogs and do not allow dogs in your house.
♦ Kill rats. Use cats or traps (not poison, which can be dangerous to other animals
and children).
♦ Kill rat fleas. Do not handle dead
rats. The fleas may jump off onto you.
Drown and burn the rats and their
fleas. Put insecticide into rat holes
and nests.