The National Academies
What You Need To Know About Infectious Disease
Prevention & Treatment
Infectious disease may be an unavoidable fact of life, but there are many strategies available to help us protect ourselves from infection and to treat a disease once it has developed. Some are simple steps that individuals can take. Others are national or worldwide methods of detection, prevention, and treatment. All are critical to keeping communities, nations, and global populations healthy and secure.
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Disease Watchlist
What do you know about infectious disease?
Which of the following is needed to help improve the public health situation in developing countries?
- More safe water supplies
- Better sewage treatment and disposal
- Improved food safety and vaccination programs
- All of the above
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Sorry, that’s incorrect.
All of the above are urgently needed in developing nations. A major barrier to achieving these improvements is the underlying weakness of health systems in resource-poor countries, including a shortage of health workers and a lack of disease surveillance programs.
-
Sorry, that’s incorrect.
All of the above are urgently needed in developing nations. A major barrier to achieving these improvements is the underlying weakness of health systems in resource-poor countries, including a shortage of health workers and a lack of disease surveillance programs.
-
Sorry, that’s incorrect.
All of the above are urgently needed in developing nations. A major barrier to achieving these improvements is the underlying weakness of health systems in resource-poor countries, including a shortage of health workers and a lack of disease surveillance programs.
-
Correct!
All of the above are urgently needed in developing nations. A major barrier to achieving these improvements is the underlying weakness of health systems in resource-poor countries, including a shortage of health workers and a lack of disease surveillance programs.
Infectious Disease Defined
- Morbidity
The relative occurrence of a disease or condition that causes illness.
National Academies Press
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)
- BioWatch and Public Health Surveillance: Evaluating Systems for the Early Detection of Biological Threats—Abbreviated Version, Summary (2009)
- Sustaining Global Surveillance and Response to Emerging Zoonotic Diseases (2009)
- Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection: Assessing the Challenges, Finding Solutions—Workshop Summary (2007)
- Ending the War Metaphor: The Changing Agenda for Unraveling the Host-Microbe Relationship—Workshop Summary (2006)
- The Impact of Globalization on Infectious Disease Emergence and Control: Exploring the Consequences and Opportunities—Workshop Summary (2006)
- Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response (2003)
