In short
Typhoid fever is a bacterial infection spread through contaminated food and water that causes a slow-building, sustained fever. Understanding transmission and treatment helps prevent relapse and spread.
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01
What Typhoid Fever Is
Typhoid fever is caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi, which spreads through food or water contaminated by the feces of an infected person, or directly from an infected person's hands. A closely related bacterium causes paratyphoid fever, a similar but usually milder illness. Both are sometimes grouped together as enteric fever.
02
Who Is at Risk
Risk rises wherever sanitation and safe drinking water are inconsistent, and for travelers to those regions who eat street food or untreated water. Household contacts of an infected person and people who work with food are also more exposed. Chronic carriers who show no symptoms can keep shedding bacteria and unknowingly infect others for months or years.
03
Symptoms
Typhoid typically develops gradually over one to three weeks after exposure, with a fever that climbs day by day, headache, weakness, stomach pain, and either constipation or diarrhea. A faint rash of flat rose-colored spots can appear on the chest or abdomen. Left untreated, symptoms can worsen into confusion, severe abdominal complications, or intestinal bleeding, so care should not be delayed.
04
How It's Confirmed
Diagnosis relies on growing the bacteria from a blood, stool, or bone marrow sample in a laboratory culture, which also reveals which antibiotics will work against that particular strain. Rapid antibody tests exist but are less reliable, so a culture is preferred whenever it's available, especially given rising antibiotic resistance in some regions.
05
Treatment and Why Finishing the Course Matters
Typhoid is treatable with antibiotics chosen based on local resistance patterns and culture results, and most people improve within days of starting the right one. Stopping early — once the fever breaks but before the full course ends — lets surviving bacteria rebound, causing relapse or fueling resistance, and can also leave someone a silent carrier. Vaccines lower risk for travelers and residents of higher-risk areas; a doctor or infectious disease specialist manages both treatment and carrier testing.
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