What You Need To Know About Infectious Disease
Prevention & Treatment
Vaccines & Medicines
Medicines have existed in human society probably as long as sickness itself. However, with the advent of the modern pharmaceutical industry, biochemical approaches to preventing and treating disease have acquired a new level of prominence in the evolving relationship between microbes and their human hosts.
Explore Other Topics
What do you know about infectious disease?
About what percentage of the antibiotics produced in the United States is added to animal feeds to promote growth?
-
Sorry, that’s incorrect.
Almost 70% of all the antibiotics produced in the United States is added to animal feeds—not to fend off disease but to boost growth. These non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics are a perfect way to cultivate microbes that are resistant to antibiotics.
-
Sorry, that’s incorrect.
Almost 70% of all the antibiotics produced in the United States is added to animal feeds—not to fend off disease but to boost growth. These non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics are a perfect way to cultivate microbes that are resistant to antibiotics.
-
Correct!
Almost 70% of all the antibiotics produced in the United States is added to animal feeds—not to fend off disease but to boost growth. These non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics are a perfect way to cultivate microbes that are resistant to antibiotics.
Infectious Disease Defined
- Infectious Disease
A type of illness caused by a pathogenic agent, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, parasites, or abnormal proteins known as prions.
National Academies
Search the National Academies Press website by selecting one of these related terms.
Source Material
- Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality (2011)
- The Domestic and International Impacts of the 2009-H1N1 Influenza A Pandemic: Global Challenges, Global Solutions—Workshop Summary (2010)
- The Impact of Globalization on Infectious Disease Emergence and Control: Exploring the Consequences and Opportunities—Workshop Summary (2006)
- The Smallpox Vaccination Program: Public Health in an Age of Terrorism (2005)
- Financing Vaccines in the 21st Century: Assuring Access and Availability (2003)
