Infections Flashcards
Pathogenicity
Microbes ability to enter a host and cause disease
Virulence
Degree of pathogenicity
Exogenous infection
A pathogen breaches the hosts external defense and enters sterile tissue
Endogenous infection
Normal flora enter sterile tissue
Opportunistic infections
Commensals take advantage of a change in the bodys environment that favors the microbe
Primary infections
Occur in healthy bodies
Secondary infections
Occur in body weakened by a primary infection
Local diseases
Restricted to a single area
Systemic diseases
Disseminate to organs and systems
Signs, symptoms, and syndromes
Signs are objective
Symptoms are subjective
Syndrome is a group of s/s that occur together
Stages of disease
Incubation period
Prodromal phase
Acute period
Decline phase
Convalescence phase
Incubation period
Time between entry of the microbe and symptoms appearance
Prodromal phase
Time of mild or nonspecific signs or symptoms
Acute period
Signs and symptoms are most intense
Decline phase
S/S start to subside
Convalescence phase
Body returns to normal
Subclinical disease
Has few or no symptoms
What determines the outcome of encounter with a microorganism
Portal of entry to the body
Infectious dose
Condition of host
Characteristics of organism
Communicable infectious diseases
Contagious
Transmissible among hosts in a population
Noncommunicable infectious diseases
Not easily transmitted
Acquired directly from the environment
Endemic disease
Present at a low level in a certain geographic area
Epidemic disease
Occurs in a region in excess of what i normally found in that population
Outbreak
More contained epidemic
Pandemic
Worldwide epidemic
Zoonoses
Transmitted from other vertebrate animals to humans
