Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Distinguishing Fever Due to Virus or Bacteria Infection

News Health Articles - Distinguishing Fever Due to Virus or Bacteria Infection. Fever is one of the typical symptoms that indicate the presence of infectious microorganisms in the body. If triggered by the virus, the infection will heal by itself within a few days if triggered by bacteria then antibiotics should be given.

But laboratory tests to determine the cause of infection is always a challenge. Cultures of microorganisms to determine the exact cause of the infection usually takes 3 days, while patients can not wait any longer to get antibiotics if it is infected with bacteria.



"A sign that is often used is the count of leukocytes, but not specific. Increased polymorphonuclear more accurately determine the presence of bacterial infection," said Dr. Irawan Hindra Satari, SpA from Pondok Indah Hospital in seminars Current Treatment in Hospital Infection Cases Pondok Indah, Wednesday (30/11 / 2011).

Apart from blood tests, a doctor who is familiarly called dr Hingky says that kind of fever is also able to distinguish between viral infection with a bacterial infection. The different types of fever was fast enough to be used in decision making when giving the drug in patients.

Fever in children 90-95 percent are caused by viruses, only 5-10 percent are caused by bacteria. Fever with high temperature (above 39 degrees Celsius) and a long duration (over 3 days) caused more by a bacterial infection than a viral infection.

Location fever also distinguish the type of infection. Fever is localized in one organ is usually caused by bacteria, whereas if it involves many organs (usually associated with respiratory tract) is more often triggered by a virus so it does not need to be given antibiotics.

Differences fever due to viruses and bacteria can also be seen from a child's behavior during a fever. If the child can still play and interact with both suspected it could be triggered by viral infection whereas if the child is severely ill, weak cry and not interested in the environment around it can be suspected triggers are bacterial.

In principle, antibiotics should not be arbitrary because the risk of triggering resistance or immunity to antibiotics balkteri. If all the bacteria have developed resistance, then the world will be back in the days before penicillin was found.

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