By NewsDesk @infectiousdiseasenews
Singapore health officials apparently issued a memo for physicians recently due to an increase in locally acquired typhoid fever.
According to the memo, posted on the Etern Medical Facebook page, as of August 13, 15 local cases have been confirmed from July 13 through August 2. All the patients were hospitalized and stable, 11 have been discharged.
The investigation is ongoing.
As of today, the Ministry of Health has not published anything about this on their website.
Typhoid fever is a potentially life-threatening illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi. Salmonella typhi lives only in humans. Persons with typhoid fever carry the bacteria in their bloodstream and intestinal tract. In addition, a small number of persons, called carriers, recover from typhoid fever but continue to carry the bacteria. Both ill persons and carriers shed S.typhi in their feces.
Los Angeles: Typhoid and typhus and plague??, Oh my!!
You can get typhoid fever if you eat food or drink beverages that have been handled by a person who is shedding S. typhi or if sewage contaminated with S. typhi bacteria gets into the water you use for drinking or washing food. Therefore, typhoid fever is more common in areas of the world where handwashing is less frequent and water is likely to be contaminated with sewage.
Typhoid fever can be successfully treated with appropriate antibiotics, and persons given antibiotics usually begin to feel better within 2 to 3 days.
One thought on “Singapore reports 15 local typhoid cases since mid-July: Published memorandum”