Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

COVID-19 vaccine based on new technology tested in clinical study

A new COVID-19 vaccine based on a different platform than current vaccines on the market has been tested in humans for the first time by researchers at Radboud university medical center. Administration of this vaccine in ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Another tantalizing step closer to a universal flu vaccine

Development of a universal flu vaccine has been a long-sought goal, and as flu scientists begin to see light at the end of a decades-long tunnel, encouraging data have emerged on an experimental shot. It appears effective ...

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Infectious diseases, also known as contagious diseases or transmissible diseases, and include communicable diseases, comprise clinically evident illness (i.e., characteristic medical signs and/or symptoms of disease) resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism. In certain cases, infectious diseases may be asymptomatic for much or all of their course. Infectious pathogens include some viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multicellular parasites, and aberrant proteins known as prions. These pathogens are the cause of disease epidemics, in the sense that without the pathogen, no infectious epidemic occurs.

Transmission of pathogen can occur in various ways including physical contact, contaminated food, body fluids, objects, airborne inhalation, or through vector organisms. Infectious diseases that are especially infective are sometimes called contagious and can be easily transmitted by contact with an ill person or their secretions. Infectious diseases with more specialized routes of infection, such as vector transmission or sexual transmission, are usually regarded as contagious but do not require medical quarantine of victims.

The term infectivity describes the ability of an organism to enter, survive and multiply in the host, while the infectiousness of a disease indicates the comparative ease with which the disease is transmitted to other hosts. An infection is not synonymous with an infectious disease, as some infections do not cause illness in a host.

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