Chapter 14 videos Flashcards
What is normal microbiota?
- Organisms that colonize the body’s surfaces without
normally causing disease - Also termed normal flora and indigenous microbiota
What are the two types of normal microbiota?
- Resident microbiota
* normal microbiota throughout life, mostly commensal
* They don’t normally caused harm to the person. - Transient microbiota
* Remain in the body for short period
* Found in the same regions as resident microbiota
* Cannot persist in the body
* Competition from other microorganisms
* Elimination by the body’s defense cells
* Chemical or physical changes in the body
When do you acquire normal microbiota?
- Fetus in womb is free of microorganisms
- Microbiota begin to develop during birthing process
- Much of one’s resident microbiota are established during first months of life
Define infectious diseases.
Infectious disease is an illness caused by a pathogen
Define Epidemiology.
Epidemiology is the monitoring and controlling of disease occurrence to promote public health.
What is a microbe?
Organisms too small to be seen without a microscope
What is a pathogen?
A microorganism capable of causing disease.
Six groups viruses, prions, bacteria, protozoans, helminths, and fungi
What is pathogenicity?
Microbes ability to cause disease
What is virulence
A measure of pathogenicity
What are two types of pathogen?
True or (primary pathogens)
* Can cause disease in a host regardless of the host’s resident microbiota or immune system
* Does not require a weakened host to cause disease
Opportunistic pathogens
* can only cause disease in situations that compromise the host’s defenses (e.g., weak immune system)
How Normal Microbiota Become Opportunistic Pathogens?
Conditions that provide opportunities for pathogens
* 1. Introduction of normal microbiota into unusual site in body
* 2. Immune suppression
* 3. Changes in the normal microbiota
* 4. Stressful conditions
What makes individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections?
- the very young,
- the elderly,
- women who are pregnant,
- patients undergoing chemotherapy,
- people with immunodeficiencies (such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome [AIDS]),
- patients who are recovering from surgery,
- and those who have had a breach of protective barriers (such as a severe wound or burn).
Are all hosts at risk for opportunistic pathogens?
- Due to differences in host factors, a harmless species of the normal microbiota in one host may be pathogenic in another
For example:
* Group B streptococci (GBS) infections
* ~30% of women harbor GBS as normal commensals in the vagina
* Associated with sepsis, meningitis, and pneumonia in newborns
* Pregnant women are screened for GBS
What is the virulence factor
Characteristic or structure that contributes to the ability of a microbe to cause disease
What are the different types of Virulence factors?
- Adhesion factors
- Biofilms
- Extracellular enzymes
- Toxins
- Antiphagocytic factors
What are reservoirs?
- Sites where pathogens are maintained as a source of infection
- are an animate or inanimate habitat where the pathogen is naturally found
Define Endogenous source and Exogenous source
- Endogenous source means the pathogen came from the host’s own body
- Exogenous source means the pathogen is external to the host
Exogenous Sources
Environmental: contaminated food, medical equipment, soil, or water
Animals: transmit zoonotic diseases to people
Humans transmit communicable infections from one person to another
Endogenous Sources
Misplaced normal microbiota: Bacteria living harmlessly on skin can enter surgical incisions to cause postoperative infections.
Disrupted microbiota and opportunistic pathogens: For example, yeast in the vagina may proliferate and cause infection after antibiotics kill off bacterial neighbors.
What are three types of reservoirs
- Animal reservoir
- Human carriers
- Nonliving reservoir
What is an animal reservoir?
Zoonoses
* Diseases that naturally spread from animal host to humans
Acquire zoonoses through various routes
* Direct contact with animals or its waste
* Consumption of animals
* Bloodsucking arthropods: Vector
* Humans are usually dead-end host to zoonotic pathogens
* Difficult to eradicate
What is zoonosis?
- A. A disease caused by normal microbiota entering a body site where they do not normally occur
- B. A disease caused by changes in the balance between normal microbiota
- C. A disease caused by normal human microbiota from the respiratory tract
- D. A disease that spreads naturally from animals to humans
D. A disease that spreads naturally from animals to humans
What are human reservoirs?
- Human carrier:
- Infected hosts who are potential sources of infection for others
some infected people can remain both asymptomatic and infective for years.
*Types of carries
Active carrier has overt clinical case of disease
Convalescent carrier has recovered but continues to harbor large number of pathogen
Healthy carrier harbors the pathogen but is not ill (asymptomatic)
The incubatory carrier is incubating the pathogen in large numbers but is not yet ill
Passive carrier a healthy person whose body carriers the causal pathogen of an infectious disease although the person has not contracted the disease and remains symptomless
What are nonliving reservoirs?
- Soil, water, and food can be reservoirs of infection
- Presence of microorganisms is often due to contamination by feces or urine
- Soil: Clostridium bacteria, which can cause botulism, tetanus also toxoplasmosis, hookworms or gastrointestinal bacteria and viruses.
- Water: parasitic worm eggs, protozoa, bacteria and
- viruses.
- Food: meat and fruits harbors pathogens
The infectious agent is the animate or in animate habitat where the pathogen is naturally found.
* A. epidemic point
* B. emerging source
* C. contaminated source
* D. reservoir
D. reservoir
Define transmission.
Transmission is from a reservoir or a portal of exit to another host’s portal of entry
* How a pathogen spreads to a host
What are the three groups of transmission?
Three groups of transmission
* Contact Transmission
* Vehicle Transmission
* Vector transmission
What is contact transmission?
*Direct contact transmission
* Usually involves body contact between hosts
* Transmission within a single individual can also occur
Indirect contact transmission
* Pathogens are spread from host to host by fomites
Droplet transmission
* Spread of pathogens in droplets of mucus by exhaling, coughing, and sneezing
A blanket from a child with chickenpox is likely to be contaminated with the virus that causes chickenpox (Varicella-zoster virus). What is the blanket called?
* A. Host
* B. Pathogen
* C. Vector
* D. Fomite
D. Fomite
Vertical transmission, a specialized form of___________ occurs when the pathogen
passes from mother to offspring during pregnancy, during delivery, or through breast milk.
* A. direct contact transmission
* B. indirect contact transmission
* C. vehicle transmission
* D. airborne transmission
A. direct contact transmission