Prevention and Treatment
Hand washing before handling food and thoroughly cooking all food before eating decreases the risk of getting Shigella.
Severe dysentery can be treated with ampicillin, TMP-SMX, or fluoroquinolones, such as ciprofloxacin, and of course rehydration. Medical treatment should only be used in severe cases. Antibiotics are usually avoided in mild cases because some Shigella are resistant to antibiotics, and their use may make the germ even more resistant. Antidiarrheal agents may worsen the sickness, and should be avoided. For Shigella-associated diarrhea, antibiotics shorten the length of infection.
Shigella is one of the leading bacterial causes of diarrhea worldwide. Insufficient data exist, but conservative estimates suggest that Shigella causes approximately 90 million cases of severe dysentery with at least 100,000 of these resulting in death each year, mostly among children in the developing world.
Currently, no licenced vaccine targeting Shigella exists. Shigella has been a longstanding World Health Organization target for vaccine development, and sharp declines in age-specific diarrhea/dysentery attack rates for this pathogen indicate that natural immunity does develop following exposure; thus, vaccination to prevent the disease should be feasible. Several vaccine candidates for Shigella are in various stages of development.
Read more about this topic: Shigella
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