This scheme reclassified the nomenclature of H58 to genotype 4.3.1. Transmission
Unlike other strains of Salmonella, no animal carriers of typhoid are known. Humans are the only known carriers of the bacterium. S. enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhi is spread by the fecal-oral route from people who are infected and from asymptomatic carriers of the bacterium. An asymptomatic human carrier is someone who is still excreting typhoid bacteria in their stool a year after the acute stage of the infection. Diagnosis
Diagnosis is made by any blood, bone marrow, or stool cultures and with the Widal test (demonstration of antibodies against Salmonella antigens O-somatic and H-flagellar). In epidemics and less wealthy countries, after excluding malaria, dysentery, or pneumonia, a therapeutic trial time with chloramphenicol is generally undertaken while awaiting the results of the Widal test and blood and stool cultures. Widal test
The Widal test is used to identify specific antibodies in the serum of people with typhoid by using antigen-antibody interactions.In this test, the serum is mixed with a dead bacterial suspension of salmonella with specific antigens. If the patients serum contains antibodies against those antigens, they get attached to them, forming clumps. If clumping does not occur, the test is negative. The Widal test is time-consuming and prone to significant false positives. It may also be falsely negative in recently infected people. But unlike the Typhidot test, the Widal test quantifies the specimen with titres. Rapid diagnostic tests
Rapid diagnostic tests such as Tubex, Typhidot, and Test-It have shown moderate diagnostic accuracy.
Mary Mallon, "Typhoid Mary" - see history section, "carriers" for further details
Leland Stanford Jr., son of American tycoon and politician A. Leland Stanford and eponym of Leland Stanford Junior University, died of typhoid fever in 1884 at the age of 15. Three of Louis Pasteurs five children died of typhoid fever. Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet, died of typhoid fever in 1889. Lizzie van Zyl, South African child inmate of the Bloemfontein concentration camp during the Second Boer War, died of typhoid fever in 1901. Dr HJH Tup Scott, captain of the 1886 Australian cricket team that toured England, died of typhoid in 1910. Arnold Bennett, English novelist, died in 1932 of typhoid, two months after drinking a glass of water in a Paris hotel to prove it was safe. Hakaru Hashimoto, Japanese medical scientist, died of typhoid fever in 1934. Outbreaks
Plague of Athens (suspected)
"Burning Fever" outbreak among indigenous Americans. Between 1607 and 1624, 85% of the population at the James River died from a typhoid epidemic. The World Health Organization estimates the death toll was over 6,000 during this time. Maidstone, Kent outbreak in 1897–1898: 1,847 patients were recorded to have typhoid fever. This outbreak is notable because it was the first time a typhoid vaccine was deployed during a civilian outbreak.