Listeriosis - what is it? Listeriosis - symptoms, treatment, prevention

Liveriosis is a fairly common disease today. What it is? It's no secret that such a disease is extremely dangerous. But what is its cause? What are the main symptoms associated with it? Are there effective methods of treatment and prevention? Can I somehow protect myself? This information will be useful to everyone.

Listeriosis - what is it?

Listeriosis is an infectious disease. In medicine, it is known under various names, including neuralgia, Tigris disease, leaferelease, etc. It should be noted that in this disease the infection primarily affects the lymphatic system and nerve tissues.

The causative agent of the disease was first described in 1911 by S. Halfes. In 1926, a scientist at Cambridge University (the study headed by D. Murray) was the first to isolate the pathogen from tissues taken from patients with guinea pigs and rabbits.

Already in 1927, Piri suggested calling the recently discovered group of microorganisms Listeria in honor of the scientist D. Lister, who once studied the nature of the disease in South Africa. And already in 1929 the pathogen was isolated from human tissues.

Brief description of the pathogen

Listeria is a rod-shaped bacterium that belongs to the group of facultative anaerobes. It should be noted that this microorganism is resistant to the environment. Listeria is able to reproduce in water, in soil, and also on plants or corpses of dead animals. These bacteria easily tolerate freezing. Even under the influence of direct sunlight, listeria can retain ability to live for two weeks.

Ways of transmission of infection

Of course, the issue of transmission of infection to date is quite urgent. As already mentioned, listeria are quite stable microorganisms that can survive outside the host organism for a long time.

So how can you get infected with this disease? In fact, the ways of transmission of infection can be different - it's aerosol, and fecal-oral, and transplacental. The source of the pathogen can be an infected person, since the bacteria are released along with the calves, saliva, sperm and other fluids. Possible transmission of infection from mother to child during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding.

Nevertheless, in most cases, infection occurs when eating meat or the products of the life of a sick animal. In fact, the listeriosis of animals is quite common. Infection can get into their body even with water. The most diseases are poultry and animals, although wild larvae are often carriers of listeria (raccoons, rodents, foxes, ungulates), as well as fish.

On the other hand, infection of the human body can occur with the use of contaminated water or unwashed fresh vegetables and fruits.

Are there risk groups?

Immediately it is worth noting that this infection is found in all countries of Europe and, of course, is quite common in other countries of the world. Normally, a healthy human body is not too susceptible to this type of infection. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to refer to the group of people working in the field of animal husbandry.

In addition, in this case, the state of the immune system is of great importance. Listeriosis in a person with reduced resistance is diagnosed much more often. For example, pregnant women, newborns and elderly people are more susceptible to this type of infection. Risk factors can also include the presence of cancer, diabetes mellitus or lesions of the excretory system. Some drugs that depress the activity of the immune system can also increase the body's susceptibility to listeria. And the risk group includes patients with immunodeficiency.

By the way, immunity to this infection is also not produced - once an ill person can catch infection again.

Clinical picture and pathogenesis

Listeria penetrates the human body through the mucous membrane of the digestive tract, rarely - through cracks in the skin. Hence, microorganisms along with the blood stream can spread throughout the body. Most often they settle in the lymph nodes, where they begin to actively multiply, which leads to the appearance of an inflammatory process.

By the way, listeria can penetrate into the white blood cells-macrophages. Here they disguise themselves from the immune system and become immune to the effects of antibiotics. In places where bacteria multiply actively, so-called listeriomas are formed, which are necrotic nodules. In some cases, extensive necrosis leads to the development of sepsis. In addition, listeria often affects the nervous system, which leads to dangerous consequences.

Listeriosis: symptoms in humans

How to determine the presence of such a disease? What changes in the body should cause anxiety? Immediately it is worth noting that the incubation period lasts from 3 to 45 days, after which listeriosis begins to manifest itself. Symptoms in a person depend on which organs the bacterium affects. To date, there are several basic forms of the disease.

• Anginose-septic form in medicine is considered the most common. At the initial stages the clinical picture is similar to the usual angina. Redness and swelling of the pharynx are observed. Patients complain of pain when swallowing. You can observe the increase and soreness of the nearby lymph nodes. In addition, there are also the main symptoms of intoxication - fever (sometimes up to 40-41 degrees), headaches, weakness, aching muscles, chills. In the absence of treatment, necrosis may occur. And the infection can spread to the structures of the central nervous system.
• Nervous listeriosis is considered extremely dangerous. Symptoms in this case resemble a clinical picture with meningitis, abscess and meningoencephalitis. Meningitis is accompanied by severe headaches, vomiting, convulsions, delusions, stiff neck muscles. When meningoencephalitis in the patient, there are some other symptoms, including ptosis (omission) of the eyelids and an aniso- sia (enlargement of the size of one of the pupils).
• Septic-granulomatous listeriosis often develops in newborn infected children. Symptoms are diverse - it's fever, pain, nervous system damage, paralysis, skin rash, etc. Often the infection affects not only the nervous, but also the respiratory and cardiovascular system. A frequent complication with this form of the disease is purulent pleurisy and bronchopneumonia.
• There is also an eye-glandular form of the disease, which is rare in modern medicine. Most often this type of disease develops against a background of direct contact with infected animals. The clinical picture in this case resembles a purulent conjunctivitis. Accompanying the disease with inflammation of the mucous membrane of the eye, swelling, redness and the appearance of profuse purulent discharge. Often, patients complain of severe itching, burning and even soreness in the eyes. The distinctive signs include a strong increase in temperature and the presence of symptoms of intoxication, which are not expressed with normal conjunctivitis. In addition, you can see an increase in the surrounding lymph nodes.

In any case, only a doctor can diagnose listeriosis. Therefore, when the first symptoms appear, you should seek help from a specialist.

Modern diagnostic methods

In fact, there are a lot of diseases that remind of their symptoms with listeriosis. What is it and what are the rules of differential diagnosis? For example, in some cases, the disease resembles infectious angina or mononucleosis, as well as various respiratory infections of a viral nature.

The medical history, of course, begins with a list of complaints made by the patient. Further further tests are performed. In particular, during a laboratory study of blood samples, a significant increase in the number of monocytes can be seen. In a sick person, depending on the symptoms present, mucus is taken from the throat and nasopharynx, the separated conjunctiva, the cerebrospinal fluid. In some cases, the lymph nodes are punctured. If a listeriosis is suspected during pregnancy, the doctor may prescribe a fence and study samples of amniotic fluid or the placenta.

In laboratory conditions, sowing is carried out on a nutrient medium. This procedure makes it possible not only to determine the nature of the pathogen, but also its sensitivity to a particular drug.

The serological analysis for listeriosis is also quite accurate, but it can sometimes give false results. Further research depends on the form of the disease. For example, if there is a suspicion of having an abscess, the patient is sent to a magnetic resonance imaging. Nervous form of listeriosis requires consultation of a neurologist, as well as conducting lumbar puncture and EEG of the brain.

How is listeriosis treated?

Naturally, the history of the disease is extremely important for drawing up the right treatment regimen. So, how does therapy look like in such a disease?

First of all, the patient is prescribed antibacterial drugs. Rather effective antibiotics to date are erythromycin, tetracycline and levomycetin. Nevertheless, in some cases, the doctor may choose other drugs, since here everything depends on the degree of sensitivity of the strain of bacteria to a particular substance.

Along with this, the patient is intravenously injected with an isotonic solution of sodium chloride and prescribed diuretics - this helps to get rid of harmful products of vital activity and eliminate the main symptoms of intoxication.

The remaining methods of therapy depend on the form and severity of the disease. For example, when the nervous system is damaged, patients are injected with benzylpenicillin. If the disease struck the eye, then for her treatment use eye drops, and sometimes anti-inflammatory corticosteroid ointments.

How long does listeriosis require? Treatment is carried out exclusively in a hospital setting, namely, in an infectious disease department. As a rule, the main symptoms disappear after 2-4 weeks. After this, the patient is obliged once again to undergo a survey - if the results of the tests confirm the absence of listeria, a person can be discharged. Nevertheless, those who have recovered from listeriosis for another two years must be registered with the infectious disease department and regularly undergo medical examinations.

Are complications possible?

In most cases, timely provided adequate treatment helps quickly get rid of such a disease. But there are some complications with which listeriosis is associated. What it is?

To begin with, it is worth noting that the most common complications are newborn babies and people with a severely weakened immune system. During pregnancy, infection of the maternal organism and, accordingly, of the fetus can lead to fetal fading, stillbirth, the appearance of certain intrauterine malformations in development, etc. If a child becomes infected during childbirth, then in the first days the children's organism can face such complications as purulent meningitis, disruption of the respiratory and vascular systems. Listeria can cause a severe form of pneumonia, which often ends lethal for the baby.

The nervous form of the disease is quite hard to tolerate. In a child, such a form of disease can lead to lesions of the central nervous system, which, accordingly, entails such complications as mental retardation, epilepsy, paralysis.

In adults, the most common effects include endocarditis and hepatitis. But even in adulthood, the nervous form of listeriosis, if left untreated, ends lethal in 45 to 70% of cases. That's why in no case should you ignore the symptoms or engage in self-medication.

Recommended prevention measures

Unfortunately, for today there is no medicine capable of permanently protecting a person from a disease called listeriosis. Prevention in this case is complicated by the fact that the bacterium is extremely resistant to the external environment and can enter the human body in various ways.

That is why the only, really effective method of protection is careful adherence to all sanitary-hygienic and veterinary-sanitary recommendations. On farms and farms engaged in the cultivation of animals, you need to regularly inspect animals and, if necessary, provide them with quality treatment. As for personal protection, do not forget about the proper processing of food - milk should be boiled, meat, sausages and other meat products thoroughly roasted.

A person with a diagnosed disease should undergo treatment under hospital conditions, so as not to become a source of infection for others. An extract is possible only if the results of the analyzes have confirmed complete recovery and the absence of an excretory bacterium in the body.