Special Sub-Topic: Typhoid Fever Click Here To Play: Typhoid Fever

Most untreated patients with typhoid fever will die.

f. Typhoid fever is a systemic bacterial disease with fever, severe headache, malaise, anorexia, rash, nonproductive cough, and constipation. Many complications can occur including bacteremia; pneumonia; gall bladder, liver & bone infection, endocarditis, and meningitis. According to infectious disease textbooks, 10%-30% of untreated cases will expire.

What is the pathogen that causes typhoid fever?

Salmonella typhi. Some people become carriers of typhoid fever following infection, shedding the pathogens in their feces or urine.

What is the incubation period for typhoid fever?

3 days to 3 months. Most typically 1 to 3 weeks.

How many US cases of typhoid fever were reported in 1998?

324. It is transmitted by food or water contaminated by feces or urine of patients or carriers, oysters harvested from fecally contaminated waters, fecally contaminated fruits and raw vegetables, and from feces to food by flies.

What was Mary Mallon, a New York cook and infamous carrier of typhoid fever during the early 1900s, more commonly known as?

Typhoid Mary. She was responsible for a number of outbreaks of typhoid fever and 3 deaths because she refused to have a gall bladder operation to eliminate the pathogens and refused to change her profession. She was finally confined to a hospital to prevent her from causing further cases. Mary Mallon died in 1938 at the age of 70.