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Clarifcation on transmission routes

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 5:52 pm
by mmdl
Hi all,

New member here and have been reading up on all the posts. Thank you to all the people that support and keep this site going and sharing your wealth of knowledge.

My post/question relates to HP transmission routes.

I been reading on this site that it is quite difficult to get reinfected with HP; and the primary routes of infection are: fecal-oral; and oral-oral.

Can the experts please articulate exactly what this means as I'm slightly confused since oral-oral is one of the routes of transmission but yet I've been reading that transmission via kissing is low. Please define what "low" means and provide specific examples of oral-oral transmission. And by oral-oral transmission, is the mechanism of transmission via saliva?

For example, fecal-oral: I touched the poop of an effected person and then I put my fingers in my mouth? Or there is fecal matter in my food/water and I ingested it?

Oral-oral: transmission via deep kissing or any type of kissing lips-to-lips whereby possible saliva of an infected person can be exchanged?

Re: Clarifcation on transmission routes

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 5:33 pm
by Helico_expert
Hi,

oral-oral route will be via saliva or vomit; fecal-oral route will be dirty hands by touching contaminated door handle in the toilet and toilet seats.

transmission via kissing is believed to be low because, to date, still very little people is able to culture H. pylori from mouth. DNA has been detected in saliva, but that doesnt mean the H. pylori is alive. From our understanding, H. pylori survive very poorly outside the stomach. So, their life is very short in the mouth and outside human body. I would say they survive less than 12 hrs in room temperature.

We believe the most likely route of transmission is actually via feeding. For example, do you remember how your mother or grandmother fed you? does she blow on the food to cool it? did she chew the fish to remove bones? did she chew the meat to smaller pieces? There are many more examples, but that's generally what happened in olden days and is believed to the most likely route of transmission.