In the Western Cape and North West, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) South Africa confirmed new cases of typhoid fever.
New 64 cases of enteric fever, also known as typhoid fever, were recorded, of the total 18 were in North West, 45 in Gauteng, 12 in Mpumalanga, 09 in Kwazulu-natal, 7 in the Eastern Cape, 4 in the Free State and four in Limpopo.
Typhoid fever is because of bacteria named Salmonella Typhi, typhoid fever is common around the world, and it affects annually 21 million people worldwide.
The person infected by typhoid fever carries the bacteria in their blood and intestinal tract. The persons recover from Typhoid fever but continue to carry the bacteria called carriers.
Ill person and carriers shed bacteria from stool and urine.
Typhoid fever is more common when people neglect the importance of maintaining hygiene. People get infected when they consume food or drinks handled by a person who is shedding bacteria or virus gets into water that’s used for drinking or washing food.
But compare to other countries in sub Saharan Africa , South Africa has a lower rate of typhoid fever.
Dr Juno Thomas from the NICD alerted that highest risk of typhoid fever is among children and they must be under proper care.
Thomas later highlighted that symptoms of typhoid fever are more flu-like, fever, headache, nausea. Some people may also feel pain, constipation or diarrhoea, and because of that, diagnosing typhoid fever is difficult. In past few years, across the country extremely drug-resistant typhoid fever strain , and it was very difficult to treat these patients, and now they are diagnosed in a blood culture.
Annually, the average of typhoid fever patients in South Africa was fewer than 150.
Thomas later said just like the listeriosis outbreak in 2018, this time, they will use genetic sequencing to track outbreaks to control the disease.
