Toxic bacillary dysentery is a serious infectious disease of the intestinal tract and is transmitted mainly by the faecal-oral route, with susceptible individuals contracting the disease by accidental ingestion of food or water contaminated with Shigella dysenteriae.
When Shigella enters the digestive tract, it passes through the gastric acid barrier and attacks the epithelial cells of the large intestinal mucosa, crossing the basement membrane to grow, multiply and release toxins in the lamina propria of the colon, which can cause microcirculatory failure when various vasoactive substances enter the bloodstream, leading to a series of serious clinical symptoms such as infectious shock, diffuse intravascular coagulation, multi-organ failure, cerebral oedema and brain herniation.
Without timely diagnosis and treatment, the morbidity and mortality rate is high, and complications and sequelae are likely to arise.