🔬A Trip To The Microbial World🔬 by @wilosmith

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BORDETELLA PERTUSSIS
💫Bacteriologically, this bacterium is classified to be gram-negative.
💫It appears like a short rod when viewed under the microscope.
💫It is also motile and requires the presence of oxygen for it to grow.
It is the organism behind the disease called "Pertussis" or commonly known by many as "Whooping Cough".
WHOOPING COUGH:is a respiratory disease that affects the upper respiratory tract mainly*.
💫It is very highly contagious; this means that it can be spread from person to person.
Among the ways this disease can get to others are through coughing, sneezing or prolonged contact with an infected person.
💫It stays in the body for about 7-10days before a patient starts developing symptoms.
💫 The bacteria attack the cilia (hair-like structures seen in the upper respiratory tracts), making them immobile or unable to carry out their duties, this springs up the coughing effect that sounds like a whoop thus the name given to it. The cilia are known to trap and get rid of foreign materials that enter the tract.
💫The symptoms firstly appears like a catarrh with runny nose, fever and a progressive cough.
💫It is most dangerous in infants.
💫The disease is observed to be most contagious two weeks within the infection and the use of antibiotics can suppress the rate at which it spreads.

            DIAGNOSIS

1.The first way to notice somebody who has the disease is that the cough sounds like a whoop, a continuous coughing reflex without breathing for some times.
Professionally, the disease can be checked for in the lab using many procedures, but the most prominently used being Culturing and Serological methods.
2.In the hospital, it can be diagnosed using swab gotten from the back of the throat of an infected patient. This is cultured in the laboratory and the causative organism (B. pertussis) isolated. Similarly, antibody to the organism may also be used to diagnose it by detecting its presence in the blood.

               TREATMENT

1.When adequately diagnosed, it can be treated using loads of available antibiotics.

2.There are also vaccines which are readily available and can be given to children in order to deter the dangers brought out by this disease. A typical example being the "diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTaP)" vaccine which protects one not only against Pertussis but against Tetanus and Diphtheria too.
Aside that, one can stop the spread by treating infected patients, by wearing of nose mask, by maintaining a physical distance with infected persons, by hand washing, by coughing into a piece of cloth and disposing it properly.

        CONCLUSION

We can prevent and stop many diseases when we learn more about them. It starts from our actions today!

Cc:
@whitestallion
@alphafx
@campusconnect