Clostridium botulinum is a bacterium, which is mainly responsible for causing botulism. Botuilism is a rare paralytic illness and it is caused by a nerve toxin. This nerve toxin is secreted by the clostridium botulinum. In medical terms, there are three major types of botulism. They are food borne botulism, wound botulism and third one is infant botulism.
The Foodborne botulism is caused by eating food consists of botulism toxins. The main cause behind the wound botulism is toxins, which are generated from the wound having infection from the clostridium botulinum. The cause behind the last Infant botulism is consumption of the spores from botulinum bacteria. The spores of the clostridium botulinum grow in a internal body organ like intestines and then discharge toxin.
These three types of the botulism are deadly and should be cured frequently by taking the proper treatment from physician. The form like Foodborne botulism is highly treacherous because mostly people can be disillusioned due to intake of an unhygienic food.
As far as the medical status of the clostridium botulinum is concerned, it is a group of bacteria, which is seen in the soil. The shape of these bacterial organisms is like a rod and the suitable condition for their living is a low oxygen areas. The formation of the spores taken place by these bacteria, which assists them to stay alive in quiescent circumstances until its expose to the environment, which is very much suitable for its development.
Medically, seven types of botulism toxins are designated from letters A to G. these are designated by the scientists to facilitate the doctors to identify and diagnose the exact type of the botulism. Among these types, A, B, E and F cause hazardous problems like illness.
If there is a failure in the respiratory system, then Botulism can result in death. The good thing is that in last 5 decades, the proportion of deaths of the patients suffering from botulism has lessened from 50% to 8%.
A breathing machine with several months of intensive medical and nursing care may be vitally required to safeguard and cure the patient who is suffering from severe botulism for several months. If any patient is survived from an incident of botulism poisoning, he may face exhaustion and shortness of breath for uncertain time. Therefore, such patient requires long-standing therapy to get recovery from such problem.
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