Infectious Diseases in Children, A Simple Guide To The Condition, Diagnosis, Treatment And Related Conditions

This book describes Infectious Diseases in Children, Diagnosis and Treatment and Related Diseases

Infectious Diseases in Children are frequent infectious diseases caught and spread by children but can also happen in adults.

With a childhood vaccination program, many of these infectious diseases that are frequent in the past are now rare.

Frequent infectious diseases in children in the past are:

1. Measles
2. Rubella
3. Mumps
4. Diphtheria
5. Croup
6. Pertussis (Whooping Cough)
7. Poliomyelitis
8. Chickenpox
9. Hand Mouth Foot Disease
10. Roseola Infantum (Sixth Disease)
11. Scarlet Fever
12. Erythema Infectiosum or Fifth Disease

All these diseases are rare due to early childhood vaccination except for Hand Mouth Foot Disease, Roseola Infantum, Fifth Disease and Scarlet Fever (comeback as an epidemic in Hong Kong)

Some childhood diseases like measles, rubella and poliomyelitis are also making a comeback due to imported cases from countries whose children are not vaccinated.

Causes

Infectious diseases are illnesses produced by germs (microbes).

It is important to realize that not all germs (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites) produce disease.

In fact, a host of good bacteria normally live on the skin, eyelids, nose, and mouth and in the gut.

These bacteria are called normal flora and are regarded as normal inhabitants of the human body.

These normal flora are useful to their human hosts.

The bacteria in the bowels digest the foods and form vitamin K, an essential vitamin for the body.

The normal bacteria on the skin and in the mouths protect by preventing or reducing the possibility that people will become infected with harmful bacteria and fungi.

The normal balance of bacteria can be disrupted by antibiotics and some illnesses.

Viral infections often injure body surfaces and prepare the stage for infection by harmful bacteria.

Often, bacteria are present on a body surface such as the skin, nose or throat or in the bowels, but there is no illness.

This is termed carriage of the bacteria, and the person with the bacteria is termed a carrier.

There is no illness in the carrier, but the carrier occasionally can pass or spread the bacteria to another person.

Many of the bacteria that are carried can produce infection and illness.

Occasionally it is due to some factors in the child or the bacteria, but often doctors do not understand the reasons.

Some important factors in the child are age, immunity, nutrition, genetic makeup, and general body health.

Newborns are at danger since their protective systems are not tested and are not always mature.

Infants are at danger since they are likely to put everything into their mouths and seldom clean their hands.

Older children are less at danger since their hygiene is better and they have become immune through previous infection or carriage of bacteria.

Another important factor for a child is the more frequent usage of medical devices such as catheters (tubes placed in blood vessels or into the bladder) and other tubes (e.g., from the nose to the stomach, from the nose to the lungs).

These catheters and tubes provide a direct path for bacteria, viruses and fungi to get into the blood, bladder, or lungs.

Even antibiotics can be a risk factor by killing the body’s normal protective flora.

Medicines such as corticosteroids (used as treatment in asthma and many other disorders) and cancer chemotherapy can disrupt a child’s ability to fight infection.

Infections are a normal part of childhood health.

TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction
Chapter 1 Infectious Diseases in Children
Chapter 2 Hand Mouth Foot Disease
Chapter 3 Roseola Infantum
Chapter 4 Erythema Infectiosum
Chapter 5 Measles
Chapter 6 Rubella
Chapter 7 Mumps
Chapter 8 Diphtheria
Chapter 9 Whooping Cough
Chapter 10 Poliomyelitis
Chapter 11 Scarlet Fever
Chapter 12 Chickenpox
Chapter 13 Croup
Epilogue