In an effort to make large-scale disease testing faster and more affordable, researchers have developed an optimized approach to pooled testing, which could transform public health screening for infectious diseases.
4 hours ago
0
0
National Institute of Health (NIH) scientists have made a significant breakthrough in understanding how "bad" cholesterol, known as low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol or LDL-C, builds up in the body. The researchers were ...
8 hours ago
0
60
The antiviral drug tecovirimat did not reduce the time to lesion resolution or have an effect on pain among adults with mild to moderate clade II mpox and a low risk of developing severe disease, according to an interim data ...
8 hours ago
0
0
Nearly 2 million Americans currently reside in jails or prisons, and another 4 million are involved in the criminal legal system under forms of community supervision such as parole and probation. There is a link between incarceration ...
Dec 10, 2024
0
1
The availability of safe, effective COVID vaccines less than a year into the pandemic marked a high point in the 300-year history of vaccination, seemingly heralding an age of protection against infectious diseases.
Dec 9, 2024
0
0
Helminths are known for their remarkable ability to regulate host immune responses, a trait that has intrigued scientists for its therapeutic potential. However, the mechanism behind this phenomenon has remained elusive. ...
Dec 9, 2024
0
6
Research from Duke-NUS Medical School has revealed that fetuses are not as defenseless as once thought; they can actually fight infections from within the womb. This new understanding could significantly change the way doctors ...
Dec 9, 2024
0
1
With flu season upon us and coronavirus a persistent threat, Dartmouth researchers propose a new way of thinking about masking and social distancing rules that is more responsive to what people feel is necessary at a given ...
Dec 4, 2024
0
15
A rare autoimmune condition with a tongue-twister of a name may impact people of Puerto Rican heritage through a newly discovered genetic pathway, a discovery that may ultimately guide genetic counseling and treatment, scientists ...
Intestinal infections can change the composition of liver bile, leading to changes in immune function and gut bacteria, potentially helping fight off harmful bacteria
Nov 26, 2024
0
111
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.
This text uses material from Wikipedia licensed under CC BY-SA
