Whooping cough is an infectious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable coughing. It is a highly contagious disease that can be very harmful to infants and young children. The early symptoms are like a common cold, so it is usually diagnosed not until the characteristic coughing attacks occur. Vaccination can prevent getting whooping cough and antibiotics can be used to treat it.
Whooping cough is a bacterial infection happening in the respiratory tract. The pathogenic bacterium is called bordetella pertussis. Once being infected, the affected person can have uncontrollable coughing and difficulty to breathe. Because most western countries vaccinated their children against whooping cough, it became a rare disease in these regions.
Whooping cough is caused by the bacterium bordetella pertussis. It is highly contagious for non-vaccinated people, because when an infected person coughs or sneezes, tiny germ-laden droplets are sprayed into the air and can be breathed into the lungs of anyone who happens to be nearby. People with whooping cough normally start with cold-like symptoms such as a runny nose, a mild fever, and a minor cough. This makes a clinical differentiation between whooping cough and a cold or flu very hard without specific testing. After 1-2 weeks of being infected, the cough begins to get worse and lasts for several weeks. The coughing is often described to make a characteristic barking sound. Sometimes the cough is so violent that it can cause breathlessness or vomiting. People with whooping cough often have symptoms including violent and uncontrollable cough, dehydration, nausea as well as vomiting, difficulty in breathing, pale skin and fever. It can be deadly for infants or young children.
To prevent getting whooping cough, already infants should take vaccines. Once infected antibiotic drugs can be used to treat whooping cough. Antibiotics can treat the infection, but it cannot treat the cough. Additionally, also cough medications often cannot improve the condition of coughing satisfyingly. It is recommended to use humidifier to keep the air moist to alleviate the symptom of coughing. People with worsening condition will need to be hospitalized to prevent a further lung infection.
Several years of work in academia, medical practice and finally commercialization make it possible to provide an end-to-end process to help users to “find the appropriate medical help based on their present symptoms”. Below you will find a short explanation, showing you which part of the platform will help you best in finding the appropriate medical support.
Proceed as follows to enter your current symptoms.
Click on the appropriate body part on the picture. Select one/multiple symptoms corresponding to your complaint.
You can also add symptoms by typing your medical complaint in the search box and selecting the best matching suggestion.
Note: Your information will be kept anonymously.
Once you have selected all applicable symptoms, click the “analyze disease pattern”-button.
Accordingly, you will get a list of possible diseases and matching doctor categories who can further help you.
You can inform yourself about the possible diseases by reading the related information. But you can also return to the previous step and add more symptoms or delete already added ones to further narrow down your disease pattern.
Click on the desired doctor category to find a doctor who can help you.
If you are logged in with your profile, you will be displayed the appropriate doctors in your area. Otherwise you can enter an address in the “address” field and you will be displayed a doctor’s list around that specified address.
You will receive further information about the displayed doctors when you press on “details”.
Online bookable doctors in your area will be indicated with the notation “Book appointment” or “Book externally”, additionally they will be displayed on top of the list for your convenience.
Click on “Book appointment” to start the online appointment booking process with the desired doctor.
Please select an available appointment. “Green“ appointments are booked directly. “Red“ appointments need to be confirmed by the doctor.
Enter your general personal and health information.
Enter your present medical symptoms.
Enter your mobile phone number to identify yourself and you can finalize the appointment booking.
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