Pathogenicity Flashcards
What is parasitism?
Invading organism benefits from host at expense of host
What is symbiosis?
Living together
When is commensalism?
Microbe benefits and host is unharmed
What is mutualism?
Both host and microbe benefit
What is a pathogen?
Organism or agent capable of causing disease
What is disease?
Illness that alters body structures and functions
What are symptoms?
Subjective changes in body function may not be obvious to an observer (pain malaise)
What are signs?
Objective changes, observable, measurable (liesions, swelling, fever, paralysis)
What is syndrome?
Specific group of symptoms and signs that always accompany a particular disease
What is a communicable disease?
Disease easily spread from one host to another either directly or indirectly. (Chicken pox, measles, genital herpes, TB)
What is a contagious disease?
A disease easily spread directly from one host to another (chicken pox, measles)
What is a non-communicable disease?
not spread from one host to another, it is caused by microbes that normally inhabit the body and only occasionally produce disease, or by microbes that normally reside outside the body and produce disease only when introduced to the body (tetanus)
Diseases can be classified according to four different types of incidences, what are they?
Sporadic, Endemic, Epidemic, and Pandemic
What is a sporadic disease?
occurs only occasionally (typhoid fever)
What is a Endemic disease?
constantly present in a population (cold) or native to a population
What is epidemic?
many hosts in a given area acquire a certain disease in a relatively short period of time (AIDs, Influenza)
What is pandemic?
epidemic disease that occurs in multiple parts of the world or a disease that effects the majority of the population of a large region
What is Virulence?
degree of pathogenicity
what is a vector?
intermediary hosts that carry the disease from one species to another (arthropods)
what are fomites?
aka vehicle, inanimate objects that transmit disease
what is a reservoir?
site where the infectious agent survives
what is a biological vector?
like a insect bite.
what is a mechanical vector?
something carried on the insect, not from the insect
what are some types physical barriers must a pathogen over come?
skin, mucus membranes
what are some ways pathogens enter?
wounds, ulcers, animal and insect bites
what is an acute disease?
one that develops rapidly but lasts only a short time
what is a chronic disease?
develops mroe slowly, body reactions may be less severe but disease is continued or recurrent for long periods