Introduction to Infectious diseases Flashcards
What are the 5 main groups of pathogens?
- Bacteria
- Viruses
- Protozoa
- Fungi
- Helminths
What is a manifested infection?
with typical clinical features
What is an asymptomatic/ subclinical infection?
without clinical and laboratory sign of infection but with molecular and pathophysiological changes
What is a persistent infection?
occurs after a microorganism has been dormant in the host, sometimes for years
What is an exogenous infection?
results from environmental pathogens
What is an endogenous infection?
results from the host’s normal flora (for instance, Escherichia coli displaced from the colon, which may cause urinary tract infection).
What is an acute infection?
is used to refer to microbe living inside a host for a limited period of time, typically less than three months.
If the microbe lives in a host between three and six month, we are talking about sub acute infection
What is a chronic infection?
infection that lasts longer than 6 months
What is a mixed infection?
is an infection by two and more infectious agents like Chickenpox and scarlet fever.
Coinfectionis the
What is a coinfection?
is the simultaneousinfectionof ahost by multiplepathogenspecies. For example the coinfection oflivercells withHepatitis B virusandHepatitis D virus.
What is a secondary infection?
is an infection by a microorganism that follows an initial infection by another kind of organism like Flu and Staphylococcus, Rickettsia and salmonella
What is a superinfection?
a second infection following the recovery of another infection
especially when caused by microorganisms that are resistant or have become resistant to the antibiotics used earlier.
What is a reinfection?
is a second infection that follows recovery from a previous infection by the same causative agent
What is a relapse?
The return of a disease or the signs and symptoms of a disease after a period of improvement.
What is a recidive?
Recurrence of clinical features even after apparent recovery
What is the definition of an infection?
When an infectious agent enters the body
An infection is not synonymous with an infectious disease
What is the infectious process?
interaction between the pathogenic microorganism, the environment, and the host.
What are the steps involved in the infectious process?
- Entry of pathogen into the host
- Local multiplication and spread
- Systemic spread and multiplication
- Exit of the pathogen from the host
How does the pathogen damage the host?
- Invasion and multiplication
- toxin production
- immunopathology
- combination of the above
What are the characteristics of infectious diseases? (6)
- caused by a specific agent
- specific agent enters through specific route
- periodicity and cyclic recurrence
- contagious disease/ communicable disease
- leads to immunity after recovery
How can we classify infectious diseases?
- By duration - acute vs chronic
- By burden - mild vs severe
- By nature - typical vs atypical (deleted, abortive, fulminant)
- By localization - local vs systemic
What are deleted atypical by nature infectious diseases?
- without a typical symptom or syndrome
What are abortive atypical infectious diseases?
- with typical onset and fast extinction of the symptoms
What is fulminant atypical infectious diseases?
- coming on suddenly with great severity
What are the phases of infectious disease?
- Incubation period
- Prodromal period
- Clinical phase
- Decline phase
- Recovery phase