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Causes of Amoebic Dysentery

Amoebic dysentery (gastrointestinal amoebiasis) is an illness caused by two forms of an amoebic parasite. Depending on how the patient picks up the parasite and gets sick, she can receive treatment to relieve the intestinal symptom and kill the disease-causing parasite.

  1. Dysentery Defined

    • Amoebic dysentery (amoebiasis) is an infection of the large bowel. This infection can be caught if the patient lives in or visits a country where the sanitary conditions are poor and in subtropical or tropical areas of the world. If he lives in an institution, he is more likely to come down with dysentery. If he participated in anal sexual intercourse, he is also at higher risk of contracting this illness.

    Parasitic

    • The cause of this infection is a parasite called Entamoeba histolyca. Two forms of this parasite can be found: the dormant cyst, which is passed in the fecal matter of infected carriers; and the naked amoeba, which has no enclosing cyst to protect it. This amoeba dies quickly once it has been passed by an infected person; the dormant cyst variety can live outside the body in the correct situation.

    Infection From a Carrier

    • If the patient puts an infected object in her mouth, (the object has to touch infected feces from a carrier) if she swallows food or water which has been contaminated with the parasite or if she touches the parasite eggs and then touches her mouth with her hand, she is at risk of developing this disease. The carrier does not have to be sick in order to be able to pass the disease on to another person.

    Symptoms

    • These include loose, bloody stools, fever, weight loss, stomach pain and cramping and nausea. In rare cases, liver abscesses may develop. Other symptoms may include chills and dehydration from the loss of fluid related to the diarrhea. In very rare cases, the parasite may travel to the brain and cause additional abscesses.

    Treatment

    • The patient who has amoebic dysentery will receive nitroimidazole medication, which will kill the amoebas in his stool, in the intestinal wall and in any liver abscesses which may have developed.
      If the amoebas are only in the intestines, she will be prescribed inodoquinal, paramomycin or diloxanide furoate (luminal drugs). For gastrointestinal symptoms, she will take one of these medications along with the Metronidazole. For the infected carrier with no symptoms, the luminal drugs alone will kill the amoebas and pass them from the bowel.

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