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An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable disease, is an illness resulting from an infection. Infections can be caused by a wide range of pathogens , most prominently bacteria and viruses . [ 2 ]
Leishmaniasis is a wide array of clinical manifestations caused by protozoal parasites of the Trypanosomatida genus Leishmania. [7] It is generally spread through the bite of phlebotomine sandflies, Phlebotomus and Lutzomyia, and occurs most frequently in the tropics and sub-tropics of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and southern Europe.
Also called silent disease, silent stage, or asymptomatic disease. This is a stage in some diseases before the symptoms are first noted. [23] Terminal phase If a person will die soon from a disease, regardless of whether that disease typically causes death, then the stage between the earlier disease process and active dying is the terminal phase.
A chronic condition (also known as chronic disease or chronic illness) is a health condition or disease that is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects or a disease that comes with time. The term chronic is often applied when the course of the disease lasts for more than three months.
Pathogenicity is the potential disease-causing capacity of pathogens, involving a combination of infectivity (pathogen's ability to infect hosts) and virulence (severity of host disease). Koch's postulates are used to establish causal relationships between microbial pathogens and diseases.
The meaning of health has evolved over time. In keeping with the biomedical perspective, early definitions of health focused on the theme of the body's ability to function; health was seen as a state of normal function that could be disrupted from time to time by disease.
Nevertheless, significant amounts of pathology research are conducted on animals, for two primary reasons: 1) The origins of diseases are typically zoonotic in nature, and many infectious pathogens have animal vectors and, as such, understanding the mechanisms of action for these pathogens in non-human hosts is essential to the understanding ...
Epidemiology has its limits at the point where an inference is made that the relationship between an agent and a disease is causal (general causation) and where the magnitude of excess risk attributed to the agent has been determined; that is, epidemiology addresses whether an agent can cause disease, not whether an agent did cause a specific ...