• Question: What is the worst disease ( Not dying!!) you can get by microbes?

    Asked by kayleighbarly to Michael on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 14 Jun 2010:


      Thats a good but very tricky question, because most bacteria can kill you if you are already very sick. Thats why people worry about hospital infections. you go into hospital, your immune system is reduced because you are ill and then bacteria that you would normally defeat, are able to invade and cause disease. ( like HIV..you die of infections that the virus makes your body susceptible to)
      But i guess if you are looking at a normally non-fatal disease…..from personal experience i would say gastroeneteritis by an organism called campylobacter. I had that and lost 4 kg in weight in three days through diarrhoea.
      Not very nice…but better than the lethal disease Cholera where in 24 hrs you can lose 20 litres of water…about the same as a water cooler. Every day
      This kills you pretty quicky and beause its diarrhoea it spreads really fast and others get it. Plus beacsue the bacteria basically flow through your body once it gets started , antibiotics don’t work against it , so you just have to get through it, unless it gets into the blood, where it is far more serious, but at least it hangs around long enough for the antibiotics to attack it.
      so yes thats the worst because its amde me feel the worse, and also because it reminds me how lucky we are to have a decent water supply in thsi country.

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