Child diseases and conditions

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Typhoid

 

Typhoid is a common fever, particularly in summer, resulting from unhygienic sanitary conditions, and is caused by drinking unfiltered or unclean water or eating unclean food outside your home.

Avoid street side foods. Sometimes, the vendor may be a typhoid carrier, which means that he has the typhoid germs in his stools from an earlier attack of typhoid, but has no actual illness now.

If he does not wash his hands properly, he can pass the germs to the food which he is handling.
In some countries all food handlers are tested to assure that they are not typhoid carriers.
Any fever lasting more than 4 or 5 days should be suspected as typhoid.

The child has moderate to high fever. Severity varies a great deal. Some children seem very ill and lose all appetite, but others feel relatively well.
The doctor will get the blood culture and other tests done, and prescribe suitable medicine.

The belief that no solid food should be given in typhoid is wrong.
A child can eat ordinary household food if he wants. If he does not want that, then soft food should be offered.

Besides oranges and mosumbis, he can have fruits like bananas, mangoes and papayas. Some children are fed nothing more than milk or fruit-juice for weeks. This is wrong. Good nutrition is as important in illness as in health. Besides, the child gets fed up of drinking milk and needs a variety of foods to keep him happy.