Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Segregation fuels faster spread of infectious diseases, study finds

Structural inequalities, including wealth inequality and social segregation, not only make certain groups more vulnerable during public health crises but also accelerate the spread of infectious diseases throughout society, ...

Inflammatory disorders

Why are urban children more prone to allergies?

Scientists discovered that a previously uncharacterized subset of immune cells may play a critical role in the development of allergic diseases and explain differences between urban and rural populations. The finding, published ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Study shows a virtual nurse can persuade you to get vaccinated

Can a virtual nurse persuade people to get vaccinated? Scientists from SWPS University have proven that it is possible. Finding new forms of informing people about vaccinations is particularly important for public health ...

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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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