AIBU to report neighbours for typhoid

[Cinders29]

Hi,

So long story our neighbours moved in about 2 years ago. They're extremely messy - huge pond and trampoline and god knows what in the front, back garden has rabbits, dogs and about 50 chickens. Food everywhere , loads of outbuildings and isn't 'stuff everywhere' anyway - no real problem to us ( apart from when we tried to sell our house )

However, we've noticed over the last couple of years an increase in rats ( we live near fields so expected but they're encouraging them ) there are 1000s of what I believe to be rat holes into his garden from the field next door. Weve also seen cockroaches.

Anyway, my son became very poorly a few weeks ago and was admitted to hospital for 4 days. Turns out he had typhoid which is ridiculous in this county right? Anyway with him being at home etc I just don't know where on Earth this could have come from.

Google says it comes from cockroaches - does anyone the likelihood of this please ? Also - if we suspect should we report ? I'll be so angry if it's come from there but I don't wanna just go around accusing when it could possibly have come from somewhere else

@CoachBombay We don’t vaccinate against typhoid in the UK as it’s now so rare.

Which country are you in? It’s too cold for cockroaches in the U.K.

@Cinders29 you should consider getting The rest of your family vaccinated based on this. I had a Typhoid Jab At super drug recently for travel

Posting just to join in the chorus that typhoid is not on the UK's routine vaccine schedule for children. It's an extra vaccine for people planning to travel to areas where cholera is sadly still endemic.

Previous posters may have been thinking of polio or diphtheria which are still on the UK schedule.

Is your neighbour called Mary?? Be very afraid OP!! 😂

Typhoid vaccination only lasts for a couple of years in any case.

Typhoid is endemic in parts of the world where sanitation is poor, and it is passed on via the fecal-oral route (i.e., some bacteria from someone's feces got into your son's mouth, most likely via food).

The common reason is when someone infected with typhoidperhaps a silent carrier who shows no symptoms-prepared food for you or ate with you at a buffet etc., and did not wash their hands thoroughly enough. Did you eat at a restaurant in the past two months or so, perhaps just before lockdown? The infection could have happened some time ago and been incubating. Or did you get a takeaway recently? In Japan, we had an outbreak a while back which was traced back to a restaurant. One of the staff turned out to be a silent carrier (he was Nepalese and unfortunately must have picked up the bug during a family visit etc.) Contacts were all traced and everyone including the restaurant worker were treated with antibiotics, so no harm done.

The "neighbor" theory is not impossible but I would rule out the restaurant/takeaway route first. Surely the hospital went through this with you? It is legally mandatory to investigate cases of typhoid in this country because it can result in death if not treated with antibiotics in time.

@Magic2020 Doctors don’t diagnose typhoid

(Medical) doctors certainly do diagnose typhoid - they suspect the disease following a history and examination, order a pathology test to confirm it, formulate a treatment plan, then convey that diagnosis and plan to the patient (and in the case of typhoid the relevant public health authorities).

They don’t perform the actual bacteriology, true, but there is much more to the process of diagnosis than that.

Are you sure they said Typhoid?

I have name changed for this as it is very outing.

I was diagnosed with typhoid in a UK hospital. It was actually through blood sent to the school of tropical medicine in Liverpool as the hospital couldn't work out what was wrong with me.

I was already in a side ward. Full barrier nursing was put in place as a precaution immediately after the diagnosis.

2 men in full hazmat type suits arrived from the public health area in which I lived. They spent hours going through a timeline of my movements to identify exactly where it has been contracted and what had done between contracting it and entering hospital (a period of about 3 weeks).

The totals are published weekly

www.gov.uk/government/publications/notifiable-diseases-weekly-reports-for-2020

No cases last week or indeed in recent weeks.

How is being aware of a neighbours garden etc curtain twitching? I assume the op has functioning eyes and occasionally looks out her windows?

OP, are you sure it was typhoid, not a commoner form of salmonella bacteria? Or paratyphoid?

They identified exactly where the strand of the disease was from - to a small region- which was fascinating.

@Cinders29
Super interesting link!

Doesn’t this say there was though?

Sorry image here

Typhoid? Wasn't that the black death or am I mixing it up with something else?

Sorry, googled, and the black death was bubonic plague.

Interesting quote from the wiki article though

In Florence, the great Renaissance poet Petrarch was sure that they would not be believed: ‘O happy posterity, who will not experience such abysmal woe and will look upon our testimony as a fable.’

Apt for these times.

Looks like there are one or two cases, but suspected of coming from overseas.

I'm more interested in the fact that cases of leprosy apparently still crop up now and again in the UK!

Just be glad you don’t get the purples!!! 😂

@Thepigeonsarecoming, I want to know how 42 people died of ‘Teeth’...

@sunbird24 I’m thinking cannibalism or sharks, or maybe turtles, I’ve heard they can be evil bastards 😂

www.nhs.uk/conditions/typhoid-fever/causes/
The transmission sources don't sound like it was your neighbours though?

I don't believe thyroid vaccination is routine in the UK, either. (responding to previous posters)

Hospital has a duty to notify public health.

I think the OP is possibly mistaken and has scurried off to double check.....

Last time I saw a British cockroach was in a hospital loo.

I think OP has misheard or misunderstood.
If this was typhoid, public health would be all over it. There certainly wouldn't be any need for OP to do any reporting.