Epidemics, Endemics, and Pandemics
An epidemic that affects the population over multiple countries and continents
What is a pandemic?
Standard set of criteria that ensures that cases are consistently diagnosed
What is case definition?
The habitat in/on which an infectious agent lives, grows, and multiplies, and on which it depends for its survival in nature (humans, animals, environmental substances)
What is a reservoir?
A person who's been exposed to and harbors a pathogen but does not have any symptoms of the disease
What is a healthy carrier?
The immediate transfer of an infectious agent from one person to another, requiring the physical transfer of a pathogen
Malaria affecting people in certain parts of Brazil is an example of?
What is an endemic?
The severity of an illness that is determined by looking at several variables that are effective measures of it
What is the case severity?
A nonliving intermediary (e.g., clothing, food, water) that transfers the infectious agent from the reservoir to a susceptible host
What is a vehicle?
A person who has harbored a pathogen and has done so for a while, even if they have recovered from the illness
What is an active carrier?
When an agent is transferred by an intermediate item, organism, means, or process to a host, resulting in disease
What is indirect transmission?
An epidemic that arises from a specific source
What is a common-source epidemic?
The first case brought to the attention of the epidemiologist that is not always the primary case
What is the index case?
An invertebrate animal (e.g., tick, mite, mosquito) that transmits infection by transferring the infectious agent from one host to another
A person who harbors a pathogen and can spread the disease in different places at different times
The process when an arthropod (e.g., mosquito, tick, flea) transmits a pathogen to a host
What is vector-borne transmission?
An epidemic that arises from infections transmitted from person-to-person
What is a propagated epidemic?
A person who becomes infected and sick after a disease is introduced into a population and is infected through contact with the primary case
What is a secondary case?
An infectious organism in vertebrae animals (e.g., rabies) that can be transmitted to humans through direct contact, a fomite, or a vector
What is zoonosis?
A person who harbors a a pathogen, and is still infectious, even in the recovery phase
What is a convalescent carrier?
Process of a pathogen uses a host (e.g., a fly, flea, rat) as a mechanism for a ride, nourishment, or part of a physical transfer process
Victims of a common-source epidemic have person-to-person contact with others and spread disease resulting in a propagated outbreak
What is a mixed epidemic?
An individual who has who has all signs of a disease but has not been diagnosed with the disease or has the cause of symptoms connected to a possible pathogen
An inanimate object (e.g., a door handle) that harbors an infectious agent
What is a fomite?
A person who harbors a pathogen, is in the beginning stages of the disease, has symptoms, and can transmit the disease
What is an incubatory carrier?
The process of a pathogen undergoing changes as part of its life cycle while within the host/vector before being transmitted to the new host
What is biological transmission?