Fecal-oral route

Many diseasescan be passed when the stool(or remnants thereof) of one hostends up in someone else's mouth. This is referred to as the fecal-oral route (or alternately, the oral-fecal route or Orofecalroute).

There are (usually) intermediate steps, sometimes many of them. One of the most common causes is that the feces comes into contact with water, which is improperly treatedbefore consumption, or foodwhich is improperly handled. Typically, fecal-oral route diseases are common in developing nationswith poor sewage treatmentpractices. This route of transmission also occurs in other regions and can be caused by improper hand washing after using the bathroom, or after handling contaminated substances.

Some sexual practicessuch as rimmingcan also spread disease by the fecal-oral route.

Some diseases that can be passed via the fecal-oral route:

• Hepatitis A
• Hepatitis E
• Giardiasis
• Typhoid fever

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal-oral+route Wikipedia article Fecal-oral route.