Symptoms and treatment of rubella disease
Measles belongs to the category of acute infectious diseases. It is most often diagnosed in children, the symptoms of rubella in adults are identical. The only way to control the spread of the disease and reduce the risk of infection to a minimum is by vaccination.
Pathways of rubella transmission
The cause of the disease is a virus that has entered the human body. It is very sensitive to ultraviolet rays and dies almost instantly when the temperature of the environment changes, the level of humidity changes. Ways of transmission of rubella:
- airborne – often occurs, that is, it is possible to get infected from a sick person, for this it is not necessary to have close contact;
- transplacental – the virus is transmitted from the sick mother to the fetus, overcoming the placental barrier.
Outbreaks of rubella are observed every 5-7 years and the peak of this disease falls on the spring and summer periods. Despite such frequent epidemics, they do not pose a danger to most people, because modern medicine knows various preventive measures. Knowing how rubella is transmitted, it is possible to timely close a children's preschool or school for quarantine and protect the majority of children from infection.
Symptoms of the disease
Among the signs of rubella in the initial stage in a child:
- non-intense headache;
- general weakness and increased drowsiness;
- short-term increase in body temperature to subfebrile indicators;
- feeling of pain in the area of large and small joints.
This condition bothers the patient for several days - 2-3 days. Moreover, neither symptomatic treatment nor folk remedies bring him relief. The preservation of appetite and increased thirst is noted, which often leads to incorrect diagnosis and the appointment of incorrect treatment.
The first signs of the disease in childhood are unexpressed - the child may not feel any deterioration in well-being at all and remain active. And in adults, everything is more difficult - with severe dizziness, complete refusal to eat, high body temperature.
Maximum three days after the onset of illness, the most characteristic symptom of the disease appears - a rash. What does a rubella rash look like:
- spreads throughout the body;
- presented as small pink or reddish pimples without internal contents;
- there are separate foci of rashes that do not merge with each other.
The characteristic feature of the rash with rubella is that it disappears quickly, does not cause itching and burning, and does not bother with peeling and crusting afterwards. This will help differentiate rubella from measles and chicken pox.
If rubella proceeds with complications, the cervical and axillary lymph nodes can become inflamed and significantly increase in size. They remain painless when palpated, but cause inconvenience - it is difficult for the patient to chew and swallow food and liquid, he cannot lower his hands, press them firmly to the body.
Treatment and prevention of rubella
The treatment of rubella is symptomatic - doctors will not prescribe specific drugs. But a patient with severe symptoms (this applies to adults or children with HIV) should be in the infectious department of a hospital - this will help to avoid infection of the people surrounding the patient with the virus. It is important to ensure:
- full nutrition;
- abundant drinking;
- vitamin complexes.
If there is a pregnant woman around the patient, she must be examined - a positive test for rubella is a medical indication for an artificial termination of pregnancy. This is due to the fact that the virus penetrates through the placenta and infects the fetus, which causes serious pathologies in its development or intrauterine death.
Disease prevention is vaccinations that are carried out according to the children's vaccination calendar. Vaccination against rubella is done once a year and it provides protection against infection for several years. If a person has contracted measles once, then he develops immunity to the virus for life. There are exceptions, but extremely rarely and only against the background of unstable immunity.
Many people are worried about a possible inadequate reaction to the rubella vaccine - mild symptoms of the disease, general malaise. But this only means that the child's immune system is actively fighting the infected virus. According to statistics, the rubella vaccine is considered the safest for a child's health, but only if there is no medical withdrawal from vaccinations.
The prevention of rubella in children is an important aspect in pediatrics, but if the child is already sick, it can be helped with folk remedies. You can use:
- decoction of rose hips and nettle leaves - 1 tablespoon each 3 times a day;
- tea made from raspberry twigs, black currant and black rowan fruit - 200 ml per day;
- infusion of yarrow leaves, mother-and-stepmother and clover flowers - 1 tablespoon each 5 times a day.
All these products are prepared according to the classic recipe - the ingredients are taken in equal quantities, then 1 tablespoon of the collection is brewed with the hottest water in a volume of 300 ml and infused for an hour or boiled in a water bath for 7 minutes.
All data on how rubella progresses in adults, what are IGG antibodies to the rubella virus during pregnancy and what to do when the first signs of the disease appear, can be obtained on the pages of our site Dobrobut.com.
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