The National Academies
What You Need To Know About Infectious Disease
Prevention & Treatment
International Cooperation
National borders are trivial impediments to infectious disease threats. In the highly interconnected and readily traversed global village of our time, one nation’s problem soon becomes every nation’s problem. Therefore, strategies must be implemented worldwide, not just nationally, in order to have a true impact.
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Disease Watchlist
What do you know about infectious disease?
True or False: Washing your hands with soaps that have residue-producing antibacterial products, such as those containing the chemical triclosan, have been proven to confer health benefits.
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Sorry, that’s incorrect.
Washing with regular soap is considered the most important way to prevent disease transmission. Routine consumer use of residue-producing antibacterial products has no added benefit and may actually contribute to antibiotic resistance.
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Correct!
Washing with regular soap is considered the most important way to prevent disease transmission. Routine consumer use of residue-producing antibacterial products has no added benefit and may actually contribute to antibiotic resistance.
Infectious Disease Defined
- Reservoir
An organism in which a parasite that is pathogenic for some other organism lives and reproduces without harming its host.
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)
- Global Issues in Water, Sanitation, and Health—Workshop Summary (2009)
- Sustaining Global Surveillance and Response to Emerging Zoonotic Diseases (2009)
- The U.S. Commitment to Global Health: Recommendations for the Public and Private Sectors (2009)
- Achieving Sustainable Global Capacity for Surveillance and Response to Emerging Diseases of Zoonotic Origin—Workshop Summary (2008)
- Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection: Assessing the Challenges, Finding Solutions—Workshop Summary (2007)
- Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance (2004)
