What You Need To Know About Infectious Disease
How Infection Works
Types of Microbes
The microorganisms, or microbes, that can cause disease come in different forms. Viruses and bacteria are probably the most familiar because we hear so much about them. But fungi, protozoa, and helminths are also big players in the story of infectious disease. Learn more about each of these five main categories, as well as a recently discovered one: prions.
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What do you know about infectious disease?
True or False: The only way public health agencies can deal with infectious disease is to have good surveillance in place, wait for an outbreak to happen in a human population, and then rush to contain it.
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Sorry, that’s incorrect.
By identifying pathogens in the animals where they naturally live and monitoring those organisms as they move from animals into people, it may be possible to prevent deadly new infections of animal origin from entering and racing through human populations.
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Correct!
By identifying pathogens in the animals where they naturally live and monitoring those organisms as they move from animals into people, it may be possible to prevent deadly new infections of animal origin from entering and racing through human populations.
Infectious Disease Defined
- DNA
Short for deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA is any of the nucleic acids that contain the genetic instructions necessary for the development and functioning of all living organisms as well as some viruses.
National Academies
Search the National Academies Press website by selecting one of these related terms.
Source Material
- Fungal Diseases: An Emerging Threat to Human, Animal, and Plant Health— Workshop Summary (2011)
- Infectious Disease Movement in a Borderless World—Workshop Summary (2010)
- Microbial Evolution and Co-Adaptation: A Tribute to the Life and Scientific Legacies of Joshua Lederberg (2009)
- The New Science of Metagenomics: Revealing the Secrets of Our Microbial Planet (2007)
- Ending the War Metaphor: The Changing Agenda for Unraveling the Host-Microbe Relationship—Workshop Summary (2006)
- Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response (2003)
