0 Contagious Causative Agents of the stomach flu 2014

What is Stomach flu?

How contagious is the Stomach Flu?

Contagious Causative Agents of the stomach flu

Viral Induced Gastroenteritis

Bacterial Induced Gastroenteritis

Parasite Induced Gastroenteritis




Not all medical conditions that contain flu in their name are influenza. For example Stomach flu, also known as gastric flu, refers to as gastroenteritis and definitely not influenza or flu. Some times when the causative agent is a virus, inflammatory cells can be found because of an inflammation of the stomach, small intestine and a possible inflammation of the large intestine. This could cause a high body temperature, which is a normal reaction of the defense of the organism.

What is Stomach flu?

An important thing is to take notice at the suffix “itis”, most of the terms that contain it, mean inflammation. All medical conditions with the suffix “itis” at their end indicate inflammatory condition like gastroenteritis or more commonly known in layman's term as stomach flu. Gastroenteritis causes irritation and, or inflammation of the stomach, intestine or even the entire gastrointestinal tract.

How contagious is the Stomach Flu?

Contagious means to have the ability of transmitting a condition or a disease by a direct or indirect contact with infected objects, food or people. Stomach flu is transmitted through the oral-fecal route. The most common causes are contaminated water, poor hygiene and bad conditions of the food preparation.

Contagious Causative Agents of the stomach flu

Viral Induced Gastroenteritis

Medical researches show that stomach flu contagious caused by norovirus is around 50%. 20% are caused by the rotavirus and it mostly affects children. The rest 30% are caused from poorly prepared food.

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Bacterial Induced Gastroenteritis

Common bacteria like campylobacter jejuni, clostridium, eschirichia coli, salmonella, shigella, staphylococcus, vibrio cholera and yersinia cause a physical experience and more or less symptoms like those of diarrhea. At times accompanied by colitis or inflamed large intestine.

Parasite Induced Gastroenteritis

The parasites cryptosporidium and giaradia can provoke a strong stomach flu which could last for weeks. Giaradia's brooding period is around from 1 to 2 weeks and for the cryptosporidium is from 2 to 10 days. Both parasites originate from excrement. Common causative factor is water that has been contaminated by parasite infected stool. It is very important for children to be reminder to keep their mouths closed when playing with or in water, because even one gulp of contaminated water is a big threat for the health. Contamination by food is not excluded. It is important to note that the cryptosporidium cannot be eradicated by the chlorine, used for the water treatment.

Trichinella parasite contaminates raw and poorly prepared foods, mainly meat. It may cause symptoms which can last for 1-2 days and start from puking, loose bowel movement and sometimes pain in the abdomen up to a greater extent puffiness of the eyes and muscular pain persisting for weeks.