When I think of infectious diseases, I tend to think of the classics: smallpox, AIDS/HIV, Ebola, Tuberculosis, etc. While I have a loose definition of infectious disease, I decided to find out how what it takes to be classified as an infectious disease.
According to the MedlinePlus Medical Dictionary, an infectious disease is:
Main Entry: infectious disease
Function: noun
: a disease caused by the entrance into the body of organisms (as bacteria, protozoans, fungi, or viruses) which grow and multiply there — see COMMUNICABLE DISEASE, CONTAGIOUS DISEASE
An important distinction to note is that an infectious disease is not synonymous with an infection. An infection may not cause clinical symptoms or impair host function.
Infectious diseases can be classified by the type of source they originated from. Viral, bacterial, parasitic, fungal and prion are all types of infectious diseases. Infectious diseases in animals that can be transferred to humans are called zoonotic diseases. Some examples of these are anthrax, plague, Tuberculosis and West Nile Virus.
Symptoms and treatments vary with each disease. Most of the time, infectious diseases are treatable with antibiotics.
Are there any infectious diseases you want to learn about? What infectious diseases have you been following in the news? Please comment so we can discuss it.
