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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to concepts related to infectious diseases in humans.. Infection – transmission, entry/invasion after evading/overcoming defense, establishment, and replication of disease-causing microscopic organisms (pathogens) inside a host organism, and the reaction of host tissues to them and to the toxins they produce.
Risk of infection is a nursing diagnosis which is defined as the state in which an individual is at risk to be infected by an opportunistic or pathogenic agent (e.g., viruses, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, or other parasites) from endogenous or exogenous sources. [1] The diagnosis was approved by NANDA in 1986. Although anyone can become infected ...
A hospital-acquired infection, also known as a nosocomial infection (from the Greek nosokomeion, meaning "hospital"), is an infection that is acquired in a hospital or other healthcare facility. [1] To emphasize both hospital and nonhospital settings, it is sometimes instead called a healthcare-associated infection . [ 2 ]
For infecting organisms to survive and repeat the infection cycle in other hosts, they (or their progeny) must leave an existing reservoir and cause infection elsewhere. Infection transmission can take place via many potential routes: [29] Droplet contact, also known as the respiratory route, and the resultant infection can be termed airborne ...
Several pathogens can cross the placenta and cause perinatal infection. Often, microorganisms that produce minor illness in the mother are very dangerous for the developing embryo or fetus. This can result in spontaneous abortion or major developmental disorders. For many infections, the baby is more at risk at particular stages of pregnancy.
Determining the presence of a hospital acquired infection requires an infection control practitioner (ICP) to review a patient's chart and see if the patient had the signs and symptom of an infection. Surveillance definitions exist for infections of the bloodstream, urinary tract, pneumonia, surgical sites and gastroenteritis. [citation needed]
Transmission-based precautions are infection-control precautions in health care, in addition to the so-called "standard precautions". They are the latest routine infection prevention and control practices applied for patients who are known or suspected to be infected or colonized with infectious agents, including certain epidemiologically important pathogens, which require additional control ...
Although fecal–oral transmission is usually discussed as a route of transmission, it is actually a specification of the entry and exit portals of the pathogen, and can operate across several of the other routes of transmission. [1] Fecal–oral transmission is primarily considered as an indirect contact route through contaminated food or water.