Slaughter of sick pigs, one person died from streptococcus suis infection

(HNMO) - On the afternoon of May 15, according to the Hanoi Center for Disease Control (CDC), the city has just recorded 2 more patients infected with streptococcus suis, including 1 death.

Accordingly, the first patient recently recorded with streptococcus suis is a 48-year-old male, residing in Phu Chau commune, Ba Vi district. This patient participated in slaughtering sick pigs. During the slaughtering process, the patient did not use protective measures.

Two days after slaughtering the pig, the patient developed high fever, chills, fatigue, muscle aches, body aches, nausea, and vomiting. A day later, the patient developed a hemorrhagic rash on the head and body, so he was transferred to Ba Vi District General Hospital.

Here, the patient was diagnosed with streptococcus suis bacteremia and transferred to Military Hospital 105 for treatment. The patient later died with a diagnosis of septic shock due to streptococcus suis.

A patient with streptococcus suis is treated at the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

The second case is a 43-year-old female patient residing in Dong Son Commune, Chuong My District. The patient works as a pork butcher at Dong Phuong Yen Market. One day after returning home from selling, the patient developed a high fever, headache, nausea, poor consciousness, and drowsiness and was taken to Military Hospital 103 for treatment by her family. There, a sample of cerebrospinal fluid was taken for culture and the result was positive for Streptococcus suis.

Thus, from the beginning of 2023 until now, Hanoi has had 5 cases of this disease, including 1 death; while in the same period last year, no cases were recorded.

Streptococcus suis (S. suis) is a zoonotic disease that can be fatal. Patients often have severe clinical symptoms, require long-term treatment, are expensive to treat, and often have irreversible complications after recovery.

According to the Hanoi CDC, streptococcal disease transmitted from sick pigs to humans includes three forms: septicemia, purulent meningitis, or a combination of both. Depending on the form, the disease can progress to be mild or severe, with some cases being severe from the start.

Eating products made from undercooked pork, such as: blood pudding, nem chua, nem chao... can easily cause streptococcus suis. Not only eating blood pudding, raw meat, but also contact with sick pigs, dead pigs can cause the butcher to be infected with streptococcus suis through lesions, scratches on the skin.

Streptococcus suis bacteria can survive at 60 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes, 50 degrees Celsius for 2 hours and 10 degrees Celsius for 6 weeks. Therefore, the Hanoi CDC recommends that the best way to prevent the disease is for people to not eat raw blood pudding and uncooked pork products; not to buy, sell, transport or slaughter sick or dead pigs or unhygienic pork products; and not to use pork with unusual red color, bleeding or edema.

In particular, people should not prepare raw pork with bare hands, especially if they have wounds on their hands; wash hands thoroughly after preparation.

In addition, people need to practice good personal hygiene, use gloves and other necessary protective equipment when in contact with pigs, processing pork, regularly wash hands with soap; destroy sick pigs, dead pigs according to regulations. When showing signs of illness, people need to go to a medical facility immediately for timely examination and treatment.

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