By: Leslie RevelesJoellen Maldonado

Selena CastilloChristian Of The Hills

Diphtheria

• Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, an organism that makes ATP by aerobic respiration if oxygen is present.

• Gram-positive bacterium.• DIPHTHERIA TOXIN MAKES A THICK COATING ON

THE BACK OF THE NOSE OR THROAT. IT MAY BE BLUE OR GRAYISH GREEN. THE COATING MAKES IT HARD TO BREATHE, SWALLOW AND MAY CAUSE BREATHING PROBLEMS.

DIPHTHERIA

• BEFORE THE DIPHTHERIA VACCINE, THERE WERE ABOUT 100,000 TO 200,000 CASES OF DIPHTHERIA EACH YEAR IN THE U.S. AS MANY AS 15,000 PEOPLE DIED EACH YEAR FROM THE DISEASE.

• CASES DROPPED QUICKLY AFTER THE VACCINE. IN FACT, IN THE LAST 10 YEARS, LESS THAN 5 CASES HAVE BEEN REPORTED IN THE U.S.

Cases in the U.S.

Epidemiology

• Disease common Immunization rates are low, little to no hygiene

• Transmission Respiratory, Skin lesions horizontal transmission• Temporal pattern Winter and spring

• Communicability Up to several weekswithout antibiotics

Diphtheria – United States, 2008-2012Age Distribution of Reported Cases

0

5

10

15

20

25

<5 5-14 15-24 25-39 40-64 65+

Age group (yrs)

Cas

es

http://explorevaccines.wordpress.com/tag/epidemiology-diphtheria/

Graph Continued…

• Diphtheria affects people of all ages, but most often it strikes unimmunized people, which in this case 40-64 yrs. of age .

• In temperate climates, diphtheria tends to occur during the colder months. In 2000, 30,000 cases and 3000 deaths of diphtheria were reported worldwide.

• More recently it has affected Russia and some of the newer CIS states.

Mode Of Transmission

• Man is the only known host and transmission is most commonly by droplet or contaminated dust and clothes.

• The bacteria can withstand drying ( drought tolerant) and also be transmitted through fomites from carriers

and cases.

Symptoms» Patients may complain of a sore throat which becomes

inflamed. A membrane forms to cover the tonsils, pharynx and the palate.

• Patients may die at this early stage of the disease from respiratory obstruction. Others may develop some of the later symptoms related to the effects of the diphtheria exotoxin.

• Complete heart block can lead to sudden death.

Symptoms Continued…

• Diphtheria is an acute, communicable disease• It is generally characterized by local growth of

the bacterium in the pharynx or less commonly, in the stomach or lungs

• Systemic dissemination (spread) of toxin then invokes (cause) lesions in distant organs.

• Confirmation may be obtained by isolation of the organism.

• The patient may also show signs of the disease due to the local multiplication of the organism (throat or skin) and also the effects of the exotoxin.

Diagnosis

VITRO

METHOD

• Patients with the pharyngeal form should be isolated to prevent further spread of the

disease.• Infection can also be transmitted from skin lesions

(direct contact or contaminated objects ). • The vaccine is a killed toxoid and is one of the

recommended vaccines for childhood. In many countries it is combined with pertussis and tetanus and given on three occasions during the first six months of life.

TREATMENT

Specific Time Frame• After 2 injections infants of mothers with

high antitoxin titers, [less than or greater than]0.1 IU/ml, tended to have lower antitoxin titers.

• All children had, however, antitoxin above the minimum protective level of 0.01 IU/ml.

• Thus, all infants were primed by 2 doses of vaccine.

• There are several combination vaccines used to prevent diphtheria: DTaP, Tdap, DT, and Td.

• Adolescents of 11-19 years of age and older should receive a single dose of Tdap or a booster shot every 10 years.

• Women should receive it preferably in the third trimester between the 27th and 36th week.

Prevention

• http://www.cdc.gov/Vaccines/vpd-vac/diphtheria/default.htm

• https://www.google.com/#q=diphtheria%20ppt&safe=active

• http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/diphtheria/fs-parents.html

• http://explorevaccines.wordpress.com/tag/epidemiology-diphtheria/

Citations