an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Salmonella paratyphi A, B, or C. Bacteria are spread in the faeces of patients or carriers, and outbreaks occur as a result of poor sanitation or unhygienic food-handling. After an incubation period of 1-10 days, symptoms, including diarrhoea, mild fever, and a pink rash on the chest, appear and last for about a week. Treatment with chloramphenicol is effective. Vaccination with TAB vaccine provides temporary immunity against paratyphoid A and B.
* * *
a febrile illness clinically indistinguishable from but usually less severe than typhoid fever, caused by serovars of Salmonella enterica other than the one that causes typhoid fever. Occasionally paratyphoid fever may follow an attack of salmonella food poisoning. Called also paratyphoid.Medical dictionary. 2011.