Tetanus

Causes and symptoms of tetanus

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What is tetanus?

Tetanus – zooantroponoznyh bacterial acute infectious disease contact transmission of the pathogen. Characterized by depression of the nervous system and manifests the excitation voltage of the muscles and sudden contractions of the muscles.

May hurt all mammals, including, of course, people.

Causes of tetanus

The main cause of tetanus is gram-positive Bacillus, which is a spore-forming anaerobe and is one of the types of bacteria that live in oxygen-free environment. It is a large, movable, oblong-shaped organism with rounded ends and a length of 4-8 micrometers and a width of 0.3–0.8 micrometer, with twenty wicks.

The causative agent of tetanus, belongs to the group ubiquitary, but at the same time, opportunistic bacteria. It is a common inhabitant of the intestinal tract of humans and animals, where they live and breed, without prejudice to the carrier.

Therefore, most contamination with tetanus Bacillus is observed in areas of agricultural activities with sufficient damp, where is it revealed in the land of gardens, orchards, pastures, and other areas where there is contamination by faeces of animals and humans.

In the presence of air and temperature at least 4 °C produces spores. These spores are highly resistant to external stimuli: can withstand heating up to 90 °C for two hours, when heated to 100 degrees only to die in 1-3 hours, in a suspended animation state for temperatures up to 150 °C, in seawater is inhabited by up to 6 months. In the soil, on different objects remain more than 10 years.

In the absence of air, temperature thirty-seven degrees Celsius and sufficient moisture, the spores germinate in the fragile vegetative form.

The pathogen forms of tetanus exotoxin is one of the strongest enterobacterial toxic substances, which is second in toxicity only to botulinum. The poison is destroyed by heating, prolonged exposure to sunlight. Not absorbed through the mucosa of the intestinal tract so harmless if swallowed.

The symptoms of tetanus

The incubation time is 5-14 days. The smaller it is, the more dangerous the disease. The disease starts with discomfort around the scratches (aching, trembling muscles). Also symptoms of tetanus are a common mental disorder,anxiety, nervousness, poor appetite, headache, trembling, low-grade fever. Due to contractions of the masticatory muscles (lockjaw), a patient is difficult, sometimes even impossible to open his mouth.

The contraction of the facial muscles causes a "sardonic smile" and the complicated swallowing. These early signs of typical tetanus. Afterwards, a stiff longitudinal muscles, the long muscles of the spine strengthen the back pain: the Patient forced to remain at rest in position with head tilted back and elevated above the bed of the lumbar part of the body. On the third day, usually marked tension of the abdominal muscles: legs extended, traffic in them is very limited, the movement of the arms a bit freer. Due to the sharp contraction of the abdominal muscles and diaphragm breathing is shallow and rapid. Due to the contraction of the muscles of the perineum are difficult urination and defecation. There are common muscle contraction lasting from a few seconds to several minutes or more of different frequencies, triggered mainly by external agents (touching the bed, etc.). The patient's face may acquire a blue tint. Due to convulsions may occur asphyxia, paralysis of cardiac activity and respiration. Consciousness is maintained throughout the disease, even during seizures. Tetanus, as a rule, accompanied by fever and sweating stable (in nearly all cases due to pneumonia and sepsis). The higher the temperature, the worse the consequences might be.