Caring mothers devote a lot of time to maintaining the cleanliness and hygiene of the home, make sure that the baby thoroughly wash his hands and eat only fresh food. But sooner or later, any child is faced with signs of intestinal infection - diarrhea and vomiting. Such manifestations do not always indicate poisoning caused by pathogenic bacteria. Often, the cause of the disease is rotavirus, and the disease is popularly called "intestinal flu".
According to the World Health Organization, every person is familiar with rotavirus infection. Moreover, the first meeting with the pathogen in most cases occurred before 2 years old, and by the age of 5 years, almost all children had already had the disease. Although the disease is widespread, few parents know its manifestations and treatment options. Often they try to defeat the disease with completely inappropriate means, which increases the duration of the disease and leads to the development of complications.
About the causative agent of the disease
Rotaviruses belong to the Reovirus family and cause diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. In total, 9 types of pathogens belonging to this genus are known, but viruses of groups A, B and C are dangerous for humans. At the same time, rotavirus A is determined in 90% of cases of intestinal flu.
The pathogen got its name because of the rounded shape of the virus. The term "rotavirus" was derived from the Latin word "rota", which translates as "wheel".
The peculiarities of these extracellular particles include high resistance to environmental factors. Viruses remain viable even when dried and repeatedly frozen. They are not able to overcome the non-cellular particle of ether, chloroform, ultrasound. To destroy rotavirus, you will have to resort to boiling, surface treatment with strong acids and alkalis, 95% ethanol.
The susceptibility to the causative agent of intestinal flu is very high, and although the diagnosis of "rotavirus infection" sounds rare, 100% of people suffered from it in childhood. Due to the variety of serovars of the infectious agent, the child can get sick several times, and no stable protection against infection is formed. But thanks to the development of cross-immunity, subsequent rotavirus infections do not cause severe manifestations, the disease proceeds easier each time. Therefore, the most dangerous is the primary infection with this infectious agent.
About the reasons
The greatest danger is the patient in the acute period of the disease, the average duration of which is 5 days. But the isolation of the virus can persist up to 20 days from the onset of the disease. Sometimes, with reduced immunity, the patient remains infectious for up to a month or develops a virus carrier.
Viruses enter the environment with feces and saliva, and infection occurs mainly when the pathogen is swallowed by a child.
Just 1 gram of feces from a sick person can contain more than 10 trillion viral particles, and 100 units are enough to infect a child. Therefore, the risk of contracting intestinal flu, if basic hygiene rules are not followed, is enormous.
Most often, the virus enters the body of the crumbs through infected things - toys, underwear, household items. But the penetration of an infectious agent is not ruled out when using unboiled water, contaminated food.
The spread of the virus is also possible by airborne droplets, when sneezing, coughing, kissing. But such infections are less common.
Epidemiology
Most often, manifestations of rotavirus disease in a child can be detected in the autumn-winter period. Often, large outbreaks of the disease occur during seasonal respiratory infections.
It got its unofficial name "intestinal flu" because of the greatest prevalence of infection on the eve of influenza epidemics.
Due to the high contagiousness (infectiousness), the disease often occurs en masse, group diseases are noted in children's institutions, hospitals. The predisposing factors for the development of the disease include the cold season, overcrowding in hospitals, and frequent contacts of children in groups.
Cases of rotavirus infection are very rare in children under 3 months of age. Babies have the immunity they receive from their mother during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
Pathogenesis
The pathogen enters the body of the crumbs and reaches the small intestine. Entering the cells of the surface layer of the intestinal wall, the infectious agent begins to actively multiply. The process of breakdown and absorption of nutrients is disrupted, diarrhea occurs.
A distinctive feature of rotavirus is the property of the pathogen to cause lactase deficiency. Normally, the enzyme is synthesized by intestinal cells and is necessary for the assimilation of lactose. With a lack of substance, an intolerance to dairy products occurs, which persists for several weeks.
How to suspect a disease?
The first manifestations of the disease occur at least 12 hours after contact with the source of infection. The duration of the incubation period in different cases ranges from 1 to 5 days. The main symptoms of the disease are:
- Vomiting.
Often this symptom precedes the acute manifestations of the disease. The baby has single or double vomiting, nausea, weakness, dizziness, minor symptoms of intoxication.
- Fever.
After the prodromal period, acute manifestations of the disease occur, the child's body temperature rises to 38 - 39 degrees, which is difficult to confuse with conventional means.
- Diarrhea.
Multiple liquid, yellow-green stools with a pungent odor appear. Diarrhea in a child can persist for 3 to 7 days, and its frequency reaches 20 times a day. Starting from 2 - 3 days from the onset of the disease, the stool becomes gray-yellow and becomes clay-like. Feces usually do not contain pathological impurities, blood, but sometimes mucus appears.
If bloody contents are found in the baby's stool, an urgent need to consult a doctor.
- Respiratory manifestations.
With the onset of dyspeptic symptoms, most patients develop signs of acute respiratory infections. The baby complains of a sore throat, runny nose, cough, discharge from the eye slits often appears, conjunctivitis develops.
Often, after an intestinal infection, a baby is diagnosed with a lung disease - pneumonia. This complication of the disease is the result of improper treatment of the child and the development of dehydration. The low fluid content in the body of the crumbs affects the work of all organs, including the respiratory system. Thick, difficult to separate mucus appears in the bronchi, then a bacterial infection joins and pneumonia occurs. It turns out that a serious complication can be prevented by simple soldering and rational treatment of an intestinal infection.
- Abdominal pain.
The baby notes the appearance of soreness, usually in the upper abdomen. The intensity and severity of the symptom depends on the degree of intestinal damage. Almost always, the pain is accompanied by a rumbling in the abdomen, symptoms of flatulence.
- General symptoms.
Children with intestinal flu inevitably experience signs of intoxication. With a mild course of the disease, the baby complains of weakness, drowsiness, headache, dizziness, and loss of appetite. If the symptoms of the disease are significantly pronounced, the disease can proceed with cramps in the limbs, fainting of the child, damage to the cardiovascular system.
- Dehydration of the body.
The infection is accompanied by the phenomena of vomiting, multiple watery stools, increased sweating with fever. All this leads to excessive fluid loss and deterioration of the child's condition. The situation is complicated by the reluctance of the crumbs to drink water due to intoxication syndrome and sore throat.
Rotavirus infection is terrible by the development of dehydration. Parents do not always notice dangerous symptoms on time, because the condition of the baby is changing rapidly. A lack of fluid is especially dangerous for children under one year old. In infants, serious complications quickly develop: lesions of the nervous system, convulsions, pneumonia.
When the first symptoms of dehydration appear in a child, an urgent need to call a doctor. Before the arrival of a specialist, parents should try to give the baby water or oral rehydration solution to drink. The main signs of a lack of fluid in the child's body include: dry mouth, crying without tears, lack of urine and sweat.
Diagnostics
To determine the disease, a comprehensive examination of the child is carried out, which includes:
- Medical history.
To suspect a viral cause of the disease, you should pay attention to the signs of rotavirus infection. It is necessary to take into account the age of the child, the presence of infection among his environment, family, the seasonality of the disease. Also, the development of intestinal flu is indicated by the phased appearance of vomiting and diarrhea, a combination of symptoms of a cold with intestinal disorders. The diagnosis is easier to make if outbreaks or family lesions are found.
- Examination of the patient.
Upon further examination, the child shows signs of gastroenteritis, soreness in the abdomen, dyspeptic disorders and other clinical symptoms of the disease.
- Laboratory research:
- General blood analysis.
When examining blood, it is important to take into account the period of the disease. At the onset of the disease, when the symptoms are most pronounced, changes in the blood formula are manifested in an increase in the number of red blood cells and hemoglobin, blood thickening.
An increase in the number of leukocytes and ESR is also characteristic of the acute phase of the disease. Against the background of treatment, infusion therapy, the number of leukocytes decreases, and the number of lymphocytes remains high. After recovery, the blood count is completely normalized.
- Stool analysis.
During illness, the nature of the stool changes, the feces become abundant, frothy with particles of undigested food, offensive. In the coprogram, there are no signs of inflammation - leukocytes, erythrocytes, mucus, but starch grains, fiber, neutral fat are found.
The composition of the microflora of feces is also violated, the number of useful bifidobacteria decreases, the growth of microbial associations increases. There are signs of lactase deficiency and acidic feces pH.
- Immunochromatography.
The rapid diagnostic method for identifying rotavirus infection works very well. With the help of a mouth test, an intestinal flu virus is detected in the patient's feces within 15 minutes. The method is easy to perform and can be used at home, and the reliability of the method is close to 100%. To perform the test, it is enough to take a little stool from the baby and place it on the diagnostic room, 2 strips will indicate the viral nature of the infection.
- Other methods.
The virus can be detected in feces using the latex agglutination reaction, passive hemagglutination and enzyme immunoassay. But these methods are only used in research laboratories and are considered expensive. It is possible to find antibodies to infection in the blood thanks to serological tests. These studies are used more often in children who have recovered and are necessary to analyze the epidemiological situation.
Treatment of intestinal flu in children
At the first onset of symptoms of the disease, it is necessary to begin treatment measures:
- Fight dehydration.
Parents are obliged to do everything possible to water the baby. Young children are very difficult to tolerate a lack of fluid in the body, the development of serious complications or even the death of the child is possible.
According to statistics, about 2% of the reported cases of rotavirus infection worldwide are fatal. The disease is especially dangerous for children with weakened immunity, chronic diseases, premature babies and children with low birth weight.
It is worth giving a baby to drink often and fractionally, and preference is given to saline solutions and drinks at room temperature. Oral rehydration agents ("Rehydron", "Humana Electrolyte"), which should always be kept in the home medicine cabinet, effectively deal with the symptoms of dehydration.
If there is no special solution, parents can prepare a medicinal drink on their own. It is enough to add 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt and baking soda to 1 liter of warm boiled water.
It is possible to determine if the baby is consuming enough fluids by counting the frequency of urination. If the baby runs to the pot every 3 hours, then there is nothing to worry about. In case of rare urination and dark urine, measures should be taken to restore the body's water balance.
If the parents are unable to fill the fluid deficit on their own, the child is admitted to a hospital. There, the baby is given infusion therapy, solutions are administered intravenously.
- Antipyretic drugs.
Since the disease proceeds with a significant increase in temperature, babies are shown the use of anti-inflammatory drugs based on paracetamol and ibuprofen. These drugs are widely used in pediatric practice and have the fewest contraindications and side effects.
- Detoxification therapy.
To reduce intoxication, the use of enterosorbents is shown, such as "Polysorb", "Activated carbon".
Antiemetic and antidiarrheal drugs should be prescribed by a doctor after examination and examination of the patient. Self-use of these drugs can lead to a deterioration in the child's condition.
- Improving digestion.
For more efficient digestion of food, enzyme preparations are prescribed - "Pangrol", "Creon", which are introduced during meals or immediately after a meal. To restore the intestinal microflora, the use of probiotics - "Linex", "Bifiform" is shown.
Often, when treating "intestinal flu", agents are prescribed to fight the virus and strengthen the immune system, antimicrobial drugs. There is a lot of controversy about antiviral agents and their effectiveness in the treatment of "intestinal flu" has not been proven. And the appointment of antibacterial drugs for "intestinal flu" is fraught with the development of complications.
- Diet for intestinal flu in children.
To speed up recovery and alleviate unpleasant symptoms in a baby, you should adhere to a certain diet. Parents should understand what to feed the child, know the peculiarities of the diet for "intestinal flu" in the child:
- it is worth giving preference to liquid and light food;
- rice broth, diet soups, uzvars have a good effect on the intestinal wall;
- you need to remove smoked, fried, sweet foods from the menu;
- it is unacceptable to consume carbonated drinks, cola, raw vegetables and fruits;
- it is forbidden to give your baby products containing lactose.
A feature of rotavirus is its ability to cause lactase deficiency. Eating dairy products will slow down your recovery and your diarrhea will last longer. Babies under one year old who are fed with a mixture need to replace the product with a low-lactose or fermented milk analogue. If the baby receives only breast milk, you will have to reduce its amount, but you should not remove breastfeeding altogether.
The time required to completely cure the "intestinal flu" ranges from 8 to 10 days. But it takes about a month to combat the effects of the infection, so it is important to follow a diet, even if the manifestations of the infection are gone.
Prevention of intestinal flu in children
The general rules for the prevention of intestinal infections include:
- observe hygiene standards and rules;
- monitor the cleanliness of toys, household items;
- avoid contact with sick children;
- use only boiled water;
- sterilize baby dishes and pacifiers;
- increase the body's resistance to infections.
But, unfortunately, even observing all the listed rules, it is impossible to guarantee that infection with rotavirus can be avoided. Due to its characteristics, the pathogen infects almost all children; only vaccination will help protect against infection.
There are 2 types of vaccines against "intestinal flu" - the American "Rotatek" and the Belgian "Rotarix". Both are administered orally into the body as drops in the mouth and are well tolerated.
Often, infection with the virus occurs from 6 months of age. To form reliable immunity, the baby must receive all doses of the vaccine up to six months of age. Immunization "Rotatekom" is carried out three times, and "Rotarix" twice with an interval of 45 days.
An intestinal flu shot can help reduce your risk of getting sick by 80% and ensure an easier infection if you get the virus. Unfortunately, vaccination against rotavirus is not yet included in the vaccination schedule in Russia.
Conclusion
Intestinal flu in children is a widespread disease that every baby will inevitably get sick with. Although every inhabitant of the planet encounters him, few of the parents know his symptoms and features of the course.
This situation leads to irrational treatment, unreasonable prescription of antibiotics and the development of complications. Understanding the causes and symptoms of a viral intestinal infection, moms and dads can create the necessary conditions for a speedy recovery of the baby.
