What You Need To Know About Infectious Disease
How Infection Works
Encountering Microbes
Microbes have inhabited the earth for billions of years and may be the earliest life forms on the planet. They live in every conceivable ecological niche—soil, water, air, plants, rocks, and animals. They even live in extreme environments such as hot springs, deep ocean thermal vents, and Antarctic ice. Indeed microbes, by sheer mass, are the earth’s most abundant life form and are highly adaptable to external forces. How does our modern lifestyle bring us into greater contact with infectious agents—the “bad” microbes? And when we encounter them, how do they get into our bodies?
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What do you know about infectious disease?
Which of the following diseases is NOT caused by a virus?
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Sorry, that’s incorrect.
Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterial infection. Chicken pox, the common cold, and influenza are all caused by viral infections.
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Sorry, that’s incorrect.
Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterial infection. Chicken pox, the common cold, and influenza are all caused by viral infections.
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Sorry, that’s incorrect.
Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterial infection. Chicken pox, the common cold, and influenza are all caused by viral infections.
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Correct!
Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterial infection. Chicken pox, the common cold, and influenza are all caused by viral infections.
Infectious Disease Defined
- Antibiotic Resistance
The process through which pathogenic microorganisms, by way of genetic mutation, develop the ability to withstand exposure to the drugs that had once been successful in eradicating them.
National Academies
Search the National Academies Press website by selecting one of these related terms.
Source Material
- 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)
- Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection: Assessing the Challenges, Finding Solutions—Workshop Summary (2007)
- The New Science of Metagenomics: Revealing the Secrets of Our Microbial Planet (2007)
- The Impact of Globalization on Infectious Disease Emergence and Control: Exploring the Consequences and Opportunities—Workshop Summary (2006)
- Ending the War Metaphor: The Changing Agenda for Unraveling the Host-Microbe Relationship—Workshop Summary (2006)
