Question

A person is suffering from a high fever but low pulse rate and is passing stools frequently, then which diagnostic test should be prescribed to confirm the disease?
a. WIDAL test for enteric fever
b. WIDAL test for malaria
c. HIV test for AIDS
d. Stool test for amoebiasis

Answer 1

Hint: Complete symptoms of the patients should be evaluated, such as range of degree of fever, and pattern of onset of fever, because they are different in every disease, and other symptoms include fall of BP, as in the question they mentioned frequently passed stools, so the person should be checked for abdominal pain.

Complete answer:
- So if the patient has a high fever which occurs in a step ladder pattern, and falls in BP, and abdominal cramps with frequently passing stool and also appear red spots on the body, all these are symptoms of typhoid, this is also called as Enteric fever.
- Enteric fever is caused by Salmonella typhi, where it occurs or spreads by drinking contained water or food which is contaminated with infected stool.
- Patients with enteric fever have 10 to 20 days of the incubation period.
- Some patients may show a symptom of diarrhea in the initial stages, wherefrom week 1 to week 4 there is a rise in the temperature and pulse becomes weak, and people may show bradycardia, etc. But by the last week most of the symptoms got better.
- When coming to the diagnostic tests, where the examination of blood and stools can be done.
- As the incubation period is about 10 to 20 days, where the initial diagnosis may not give a perfect diagnosis, so the test should be done after complete symptoms and the WIDAL test is used to diagnose the enteric fever.

Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note: Antibiotic treatment should be given to enteric fever, where it is given totally for 5 days so we can see a resolution of fever, and for the particular treatment the blood or stool culture should be done so that there is less relapse of fever again.