Cases
What is a Case?
In epidemiology, a case is a set of criteria used to decide whether or not a person has a disease or health event of interest.
What is Direct Transmission?
Direct transmission occurs when an infectious agent moves from its reservoir to a vulnerable host through unmediated means, such as physical contact or the dispersion of infectious droplets.
What is a Carrier?
Carriers are people who have infectious organisms in their bodies but don't have any obvious signs of illness.
What is Primary Prevention?
Primary prevention means taking action before negative health effects happen. This can be done through immunizations, changing risky behaviors, and banning drugs linked to a disease or health condition.
What is Zoonosis?
A zoonosis is a disease that started in a non-human animal and then spread to people.
What is a Case Definition?
A case definition is a list of standard ways to tell if someone has a certain disease, syndrome, or other health condition.
What is Airborne Transmission?
Airborne transmission is the propagation of an infectious agent through droplet nuclei that stay infectious over extended distances and time.
What is a Healthy or Passive Carrier?
People who are infected but don't have any symptoms are called asymptomatic, passive, or healthy carriers.
What is Passive Primary Prevention?
Passive prevention strategies are those that protect people without them having to do anything. People are protected automatically, and sometimes even without their knowledge.
What is a Fomite?
A fomite is a non-living thing that can carry and spread disease and other infectious agents.
What is a Primary Case?
Primary cases are people who were directly exposed to the outbreak source.
What is Mechanical Transmission?
Mechanical transmission involves transferring diseases from an infected host or contaminated substrate to a vulnerable host without a biological link between the pathogen and vector.
What is an Active Carrier?
Active carriers are people who have the disease and can pass it on to others. A person who is a "carrier" of infection may or may not show signs or symptoms of it.
The goal of secondary prevention is to lessen how bad a disease or injury is after it has already happened.
What is a Mixed Epidemic?
Mixed epidemics contain characteristics of both common-source and person-to-person diseases. Not infrequently, a common-source outbreak is followed by secondary person-to-person transmission.
What is a Suspect Case?
A case that, for the purposes of reporting, has been categorized as suspicious.
What is Vector-Borne Transmission?
Vector-borne diseases are infections that are spread by the bite of an infected arthropod, such as a mosquito, tick, triatomine bug, sandfly, or blackfly.
What is an Intermittent Carrier?
A person who has certain pathogenic organisms but is usually immune to them can still pass them on to other people.
What is Tertiary Prevention?
Tertiary prevention tries to lessen the effects of a long-lasting illness or injury.
What is Effectivemess?
Effectiveness is a measure of whether or not an intervention does more good than harm when it is used in the usual way in healthcare.
What is an Index Case?
The index case is the first person who is known to have a disease in a population or the first person who is known to have a disease in a study.
What is Biological Transmission?
Biological transmission happens when a vector eats the agent, usually the blood of an infected animal, grows and/or copies it, and then regurgitates or injects it into a vulnerable animal.
What is a Convalescent Carrier?
People who have gotten better from their illness but can still pass it on to others are called convalescent carriers.
What is Active Primary Prevention?
Active primary prevention tries to stop illness or injury from happening in the first place.
What is Descriptive Epidemiology?
Descriptive epidemiology is defined as epidemiological investigations and activities with stronger descriptive than analytic components.