Infectious disease" redirects here. For the medical specialty, see Infectious disease (medical specialty).

For other uses, see Infection (disambiguation).

Infection is the invasion of an organism's body tissues by disease-causing agents, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agents and the toxins they produce. Infectious disease, also known as transmissible disease or communicable disease is illness resulting from an infection.

Infections are caused by infectious agents (pathogens) including:

•             Viruses and related agents such as viroids and prions

•             Bacteria

•             Fungi, further sub classified into:

o             Ascomycota, including yeasts such as Candida, filamentous fungi such as Aspergillus, Pneumocystis species, and dermatophytes, a group of organisms causing infection of skin and other superficial structures in humans.

• Basidiomycota, including the human-pathogenic genus Cryptococcus.
  • Parasites, which are usually divided into
• unicellular organisms (e.g. malaria, Toxoplasma, Babesia)
• macroparasites (worms or helminths) including nematodes such as parasitic roundworms and pinworms, tapeworms (cestodes), and flukes (trematodes, such as schistosomiasis)
  • Arthropods such as ticks, mites, fleas, and lice, can also cause human disease, which conceptually are similar to infections, but invasion of a human or animal body by these macroparasites is usually termed infestation. (Diseases caused by helminths, which are also macroparasites, are sometimes termed infestations as well, but are sometimes called infections.)

Hosts can fight infections using their immune system. Mammalian hosts react to infections with an innate response, often involving inflammation, followed by an adaptive response.

Specific medications used to treat infections include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, antiprotozoals, and antihelminthics. Infectious diseases resulted in 9.2 million deaths in 2013 (about 17% of all deaths). The branch of medicine that focuses on infections is referred to as infectious disease.

Signs and symptoms

The symptoms of an infection depend on the type of disease. Some signs of infection affect the whole body generally, such as fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, fevers, night sweats, chills, aches and pains. Others are specific to individual body parts, such as skin rashes, coughing, or a runny nose.

In certain cases, infectious diseases may be asymptomatic for much or even all of their course in a given host. In the latter case, the disease may only be defined as a "disease" (which by definition means an illness) in hosts who secondarily become ill after contact with an asymptomatic carrier. An infection is not synonymous with an infectious disease, as some infections do not cause illness in a host.

Bacterial or viral

Bacterial and viral infections can both cause the same kinds of symptoms. It can be difficult to distinguish which is the cause of a specific infection. It is important to distinguish, because viral infections cannot be cured by antibiotics.

Disease

Disease can arise if the host's protective immune mechanisms are compromised and the organism inflicts damage on the host. Microorganisms can cause tissue damage by releasing a variety of toxins or destructive enzymes. For example, Clostridium tetani releases a toxin that paralyzes muscles, and staphylococcus releases toxins that produce shock and sepsis. Not all infectious agents cause disease in all hosts. For example, less than 5% of individuals infected with polio develop disease. On the other hand, some infectious agents are highly virulent. The prion causing mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease invariably kills all animals and people that are infected.

Persistent infections occur because the body is unable to clear the organism after the initial infection. Persistent infections are characterized by the continual presence of the infectious organism, often as latent infection with occasional recurrent relapses of active infection. There are some viruses that can maintain a persistent infection by infecting different cells of the body. Some viruses once acquired never leave the body. A typical example is the herpes virus, which tends to hide in nerves and become reactivated when specific circumstances arise.

Persistent infections cause millions of deaths globally each year. Chronic infections by parasites account for a high morbidity and mortality in many underdeveloped countries

Pathophysiology

There is a general chain of events that applies to infections. The chain of events involves several steps—which include the infectious agent, reservoir, entering a susceptible host, exit and transmission to new hosts. Each of the links must be present in a chronological order for an infection to develop. Understanding these steps helps health care workers target the infection and prevent it from occurring in the first place.      

Media contact:

Sarah V
Managing Editor
Journal of Infectious Diseases & Therapy
Email: Jidt@eclinicalsci.com

What’s App: +1-947-333-4405