Is peritonitis contagious?
As described above, the most common cause of peritonitis is a previous appendicitis that was not treated properly or quickly enough. This caused the appendix to become brittle, allowing germs and pro-inflammatory substances to enter the peritoneal cavity. These germs, however, are not harmful to humans as long as they are in the intestine.
Some of them are even useful and support our digestion. Other causes of peritonitis, such as inflamed protrusions of the colon (diverticulitis) or inflammation due to a previous, untreated intestinal obstruction, also cause germs to escape from the intestine. The processes that ultimately lead to inflammation of the peritoneum take place within the body of the patient.
For outsiders and caregivers there is no risk of infection via the patient’s excretions or the air. As already mentioned, peritonitis is often caused by germs that even a healthy person would excrete with the stool. However, malignant germs are also partly responsible for the development of peritonitis.
However, these germs are only able to trigger such an inflammation if they enter the peritoneal cavity of a person via the brittle intestine or other intact abdominal organs. Infections with these germs can occur through contaminated food and could cause gastro-intestinal disease in healthy people with intact internal organs, which would manifest itself for example in diarrhoea and vomiting. There is therefore no danger of contracting peritonitis if you have been in contact with a person who has contracted peritonitis.
A special form of peritonitis is the so-called Feline infectious peritonitis, which is caused by a virus, but occurs almost mainly in cats. The excrements of an infected cat are contagious, i.e. infectious for other cats, which can then also fall ill with it. For humans, the responsible virus is not dangerous, so there is no risk of infection in contact with an infected cat.
In children, the disease peritonitis plays an important role, because the peak of the disease, which is an important cause for the development of peritonitis, is in the school age. Furthermore, there is a very rare form of peritonitis, which accounts for only 1% of all peritonitis cases and affects mainly children and people with an already weakened immune system, namely the so-called “primary peritonitis”. This form of peritonitis is not caused by bacteria that found their way into the peritoneal cavity via broken and inflamed abdominal organs such as the stomach, intestines or appendix.
The cause of “primary peritonitis” is rather bacteria that enter the peritoneum directly via the bloodstream, which is well supplied with blood, or those that rise into the peritoneal cavity from an infection of the pelvic organs. Once there, the bacteria are able to settle and cause the inflammation. While in the more frequent form of peritonitis the bacteria Escherichia coli and Enterococci are important inflammatory pathogens, in the rare form already described, mainly Streptococci and Pneumococci are found as triggers for peritonitis.
Pneumococcal peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum caused by the bacteria that are also responsible for the development of pneumonia. It is particularly common in girls aged between 3 and 10 years. Since it is considered to be one of the primary forms, it is a very rare disease.
If an infection with these bacteria is suspected, it does not necessarily have to have been preceded by pneumonia. The pneumococci are often spread via the child’s intestines and vagina and from there they reach the peritoneum via the bloodstream and infect it. The cause of peritonitis in newborns and infants is due to certain previous illnesses.
Important to mention here is necrotising enterocolitis, in which there is a local reduction in blood flow to the intestinal wall, which damages it, which in turn promotes bacterial colonisation. As a result, the intestinal wall eventually dies and the peritoneum adjacent to the intestine becomes inflamed. Other causes can be: a volvulus, in which the intestine twists, which leads to constriction of the supplying vessels, and a so-called meconium environment, an intestinal obstruction caused by the first faeces produced by the child.
Both cause the intestine to become brittle and bacteria to reach the peritoneum and inflame it. In older children, the most common causes are appendicitis, as well as the chronic inflammatory bowel disease Crohn’s disease, inflamed lymph nodes in the bowel and so-called invaginations, in which a preceding bowel segment is inserted into the preceding one like a stocking. The peritonitis in children and infants is similar to that in adults.
For example, when pressure is exerted on the abdominal wall, they show so-called defensive tension, which makes the abdomen feel harder. If the disease is very advanced, the abdomen can also feel as hard as a board. The children feel feverish and have severe abdominal pain, which makes them anxious and makes them cry a lot.
This is accompanied by diarrhoea and nausea with vomiting. In infants a weakness in drinking is observed as a sign of listlessness. In some cases, the disease can also begin insidiously.
The child is merely limp and the symptoms increase slowly in the course of time. There is no hard abdominal wall. Early therapy is vital, as fluid loss and an imbalance in the electrolyte and protein content of the child can occur. There is also the risk of blood poisoning.
