Hot and wet summer is a peak season for intestinal infectious diseases. It’s important to avoid “illness finds its way in by the mouth” and prevent infectious diarrhea.

Infectious diarrhea refers to common enteric infectious diseases with diarrhea as a major symptom caused by different pathogens such as bacteria, virus and parasites and excluding cholera, dysentery, typhoid and paratyphoid. Infectious diarrhea has been listed as a C-class notifiable disease in China.

So far there have been more than 50 types of pathogens known to cause infectious diarrhea, among which there are the bacteria type such as salmonella and Escherichia coli, etc.; the virus type such as Norovirus and enteric adenovirus, etc.; and the parasite type. Most people are susceptible to the disease and  long-term immunity is difficult to gain. So the infectious diarrhea may break out more than once in one’s lifetime or within a year.

According to statistics, in 2007, the disease rate of infectious diarrhea of Beijing is 390.44/100,000 with 2 deaths. In 2008, the disease rate is 296.93/100,000 with 2 deaths, showing significant drop compared to 2007.

 The main infection source of infectious diarrhea is patients and pathogen carriers, and it spreads through the approach of “excrement to mouth”, such as infected food, water and daily necessities. If the meat, egg, milk products and seafood in our daily diet are infected by the diarrhea pathogens, and we fail to boil or braise them thoroughly before eating, then infectious diarrhea may be caused. Fulminant epidemic often results from infected food and water.

The latent period of infectious diarrhea may be hours, days or weeks. The disease is often acute. The clinical symptoms differ, highlighting irritative symptoms of gastrointestinal tract, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal distension, bellyache and diarrhea. Diarrhea happens three or ten times a day, with watery stool or grumous, bloody purulent stool; sufferer may also feel rectal tenesmus and partial tenderness. Most sufferers feel algid and have fever, acratia, dizziness and general malaise; worse sufferers may dehydrate or get electrolyte disturbances due to excessive water loss, or even get shock. The course of infectious diarrhea may last days or 1-2 weeks, and serious complications may occur if timely treatment is not given. Therefore, sufferer should seek doctor’s help in time in order to avoid delaying treatment.

To prevent infectious diarrhea, first, we should enhance people’s self protection awareness through promotion and education. Second, we should enhance immune function through physical exercise. Third, we should avoid “illness finds its way in by the mouth” by maintaining better hygiene, such as washing hands before eating and after using the toilet; not eating unclean food or raw water; washing fruits and vegetables before eating them raw, separating raw and cooked food during processing; not eating  raw seafood. Fourth, we should implement “Three Managements and One Elimination”, i.e. manage water, manage food, manage excrement and eliminate flies.

Every April to October, we set enteric diseases clinics in more than 300 hospitals all over our city to diagnoze and treat patients 24 hours a day, and examine any diarrhea symptom. We hope citizens suffering diarrhea will seek doctor’s help in time.