A 16 -year -old female student Tang (Taiwan, China) recently experienced a scary experience: infected with Sapovirus after feeding a wild cat.It all started when the young girl suddenly had symptoms of high fever, abdominal pain, vomiting and unstoppable diarrhea.Her parents hurriedly took her daughter to the emergency department of a general hospital near her home.The diagnostic result of her "gastrointestinal cold" - the terms of gastritis due to viruses in medicine.
After two days of taking the drug, her condition increased not only did not improve even more seriously.She vomited dozens of times a day, even drinking water to vomit.After that, she also suffered from urinary tract infections due to serious dehydration, forced to transfer to Changhua Hospital (Taiwan, China) to continue treatment.
16 -year -old female student suffered from serious gastritis after feeding a wild cat (Artwork)
Here, doctors tried to learn more about the cause of the disease and discovered that Tang Tang contacted the wild cat before being hospitalized.Dr. Morishan - Head of Pediatrics of the Hospital shared:“Just as we doubt, tests show that Sapovirus infection.This is a rare virus that causes gastritis.
NIt is not as popular as Norovirus, Rotavirus or Adenovirus but the symptoms are similar, such as vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and even high fever.These symptoms make the body dehydrated quickly, especially dangerous if not treated promptly. ”
How to prevent Sapovirus when exposed to animals?
As explained by Dr. Ma, Sapovirus is mainly transmitted by divergence - mouth.This means that this virus can penetrate the body through contact with the virus and then put your hand to the mouth without cleaning.Sapovirus's most common transmission is from person to person through direct or indirect contact with food, drinking water or items that the virus infection has touched.
He emphasized:“Although the risk of Sapovirus infection from animals is very low, it is not not happening.Like this child, many people think that cats are only harmful if they scratch/bite, but even if we do not bite or scratch, we can infect some pathogens through contact, including Sapovirus.The higher the risk if it is wildlife, not regularly hygienic or after contact we do not wash your hands properly. ”
In her case, when she fed the wild cat, she stroked it a lot and tried to clean its body with her hands.After that, she did not wash her hands but directly touched her mouth, used to pick up snacks.Naturally, not every wild cat or animal hides Sapovirus, but the important thing for the disease to prevent the doctor reminded is not arbitrary contact with wildlife.If there is contact, then have to wash your hands thoroughly, go to the hospital as soon as there are unusual signs.
After exposure to animals, especially wildlife, wash your hands thoroughly to prevent Sapovirus (Artwork)
Dr. Ma reminded:"Careful personal hygiene and clean food control is the best way to protect health and stay away from viral gastritis."Specifically, to prevent gastrointestinal viruses, the most important thing is to wash your hands regularly, especially after going to the toilet, before eating and after touching animals.Eat raw foods.If there are people infected with Sapovirus or similar viruses, the bleach should be used to disinfect the surface to limit the spread.
Source and photo: Health GVM, ETToday