• Question: Usually, what are the first symptoms of a bacterial infection on the human body?

    Asked by scarlett to ☣ Danna, Lindsay, Daniela ? on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Daniela Lobo

      Daniela Lobo answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Good question, Scarlett.
      In most cases, very generally speaking, you will get inflammation and fever. Sometimes, you have no symptoms at all. That will depend greatly on the bacteria itself and on the immune system of the host (i.e human body, in this case).
      For example, if the infection is cased by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, you might get tuberculoses which most commonly affects the lungs (although it might reach other parts of your body) and it’s characterised by fever, chest pain, fatigue and cough with sputum and more rarely, coughing blood. However, there is percentage of people who are infected and don’t show any symptoms at all!

    • Photo: Danna Gifford

      Danna Gifford answered on 17 Jun 2016:

      Hi Scarlett,

      It depends where the infection is. If it’s in the lungs, you might have a cough, and you’ll probably feel very poorly. If it’s on your skin, you might feel itchy and swollen, or it might have a bad smell or colour.

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