Black pox, otherwise called natural, is an acute anthroponous, highly contagious serious disease, which is characterized by the aerosol transmission of infection. Accompanying the disease is a marked intoxication of the body , fever and rash. Patients who have suffered an ailment may face loss of vision, as well as scars that can remain for life.
Symptoms of smallpox
The manifestation of the disease depends on the period of its course:
- From the onset of infection to the body and before the first signs appear, it lasts from seven days to three weeks. By this time, the first signs of the smallpox virus begin to manifest themselves, namely, a red rash resembling a measles rash. It is accompanied by a fever that passes four days later.
- Gradually, the symptoms take a more pronounced form, a small rash appears, which for three days turns from roseol into vesicles, which are multi-chambered nodules that have indentations in the center. The skin is hyperemic. With the development of the disease, symptoms of intoxication are noted in patients.
- After two weeks from the onset of infection, the health deteriorates again. The patient is worried about the high temperature. Vesicles acquire a multi-chamber character, and pus begins to form inside them. When the vesicles dry up, black crusts form on the skin. At this stage, the patient is troubled by severe itching.
- About a month later the black pox recedes, and the manifestation of the disease begins to decrease. The temperature subsides, instead of a rash, scars are now formed, the depth of which depends on the degree of damage to the body.
Complications include:
- toxic shock;
- panophthalmitis;
- meningoencephalitis;
- other disorders of the nervous system.
In case of infection by bacteria,
- sepsis ;
- irit;
- phlegmon;
- abscesses;
- endocarditis;
- pleurisy.
Treatment of smallpox
Patients are hospitalized, they are assigned bed rest and a special diet. Fighting the disease involves taking antiviral drugs, antibiotics and immunoglobulins, drugs that depress the activity of pathogens in the body. Treatment is based on the intake of such medications:
- Metisazone;
- Virazol (Ribavirin);
- immunoglobulin.
To reduce the pain syndrome, the doctor can prescribe analgesics and hypnotics.
Skin and mucous membranes are treated with antiseptics:
- for the skin use potassium permanganate;
- for eyelids - boric acid;
- for the treatment of the oral cavity - sodium bicarbonate.
To prevent the attachment of secondary infection, semi-synthetic penicillins and cephalosporins are prescribed. They are discharged from the hospital after all the scales have disappeared.
Lethal outcome depends on the severity of the disease. The mortality rate ranges from 20 to 100%. The patient immediately hospitalized for a period not less than forty days. In this case, everyone who has contacted the infected person,
Prevention of smallpox
In the period of the epidemic of smallpox vaccination was carried out by a virus that was excreted on the calf's skin. Now the drugs have a similar structure to the pathogen and are highly effective. The introduction of the virus into the body allows a person to develop immunity to him, which further prevents infection. This is what enabled the developed countries in the middle of the twentieth century to overcome the disease.
Now vaccination against smallpox is carried out before trips to epidemic corners of the earth.