We have already studied many things about infectious diseases in previous articles. In this article, we shall study the treatment of infectious diseases

Acute Diseases:

An acute disease is a disease which lasts for just a short time but can begin rapidly and have intense symptoms. Example: Common cold, Influenza, malaria, cholera, etc.

Characteristics of Acute Diseases:

• The onset of the acute disease is usually abrupt and is from a single cause
• This type of disease develops quickly and worsens rapidly, such as an infection, trauma or injury.
• The symptoms and acute pain last for a few days only, and after healing of the patient, the symptoms disappear.
• Such diseases can be diagnosed and treated accordingly.
• Once treated these diseases generally do not have any long-term effect.
• There is a possibility that the healing may take place on its own. and the patient returns to normal within a few days.
• The disease usually isolated to one bodily area
• If the acute disease lasts longer than three months, it may lead to chronic disease.

Types of Acute Diseases:

• Common short-term infections: common colds, influenza, sore throat, acute sinusitis, ear infection, urine infection, etc.
• Severe diseases: pneumonia, bronchitis, encephalomyelitis.
• Physical injury: a cut, broken bone, muscle tearing, sprain, burn or trauma
• Organ failures: a heart attack or kidney failure

Treatment of Acute Diseases:

For minor illnesses such as the common cold medical treatment is not necessary. If the disease is a more serious, a medication and in some cases, a few days of hospitalization is required.

Information about these diseases is available easily and precise laboratory testing, medication, and surgical procedures are available. Hence most of the acute diseases can be treated and cured and the patient returns to normal life.

Chronic Diseases:

Chronic disease is a disease which is persistent. It lasts for a long period of time and might recur. Examples: asthma, arthritis, tuberculosis, cancer, arthritis, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, etc.

Characteristics of Chronic Diseases:

• The onset of chronic disease is commonly gradual.
• This type of disease develops slowly and worsens slowly over a long period.
• The duration of chronic diseases is lengthy and indefinite.
• Diagnosis of chronic diseases is often uncertain and takes a long time and a lengthy process for an accurate diagnosis.
• Once treated these diseases can have long-term effect and possibility of recurrence is there.
• There is no possibility of auto-healing. A proper long medical treatment is required.
• There are multiple causes for diseases including generic and environmental.
• Chronic disease is the major cause of deaths.

Treatment of Chronic Disease:

Effective treatment of the chronic disease requires that the physician and patient work together on a long-term basis. The physician, observes symptoms over a period and interpret the condition, trend and the rate of change of the diseases in the patient.

Sign and Symptoms of Disease:

A symptom is any subjective evidence of disease, while a sign is any objective evidence of disease. Thus, a symptom is a phenomenon that is experienced by the individual affected by the disease, while a sign is a phenomenon that can be detected by someone other than the individual affected by the disease.

For examples, anxiety, pain, and fatigue are all symptoms can be experienced by individual suffering from the disease. While a bloody nose is a sign of injured blood vessels in the nose that can be detected by another person. Rashes, swelling of glands, change in colour of skin and eyes, oedema, etc. are other signs which give the doctor a good idea about diseases. For e.g. a yellowish colour of skin and eye can be due to hepatitis. Red sticky eyes are due to conjunctivitis, etc.

Symptoms:

When we suffer from a disease, we feel unwell because some part or parts of our body are not working normally. This indication of diseases can be perceived by us only. These indications are called symptoms. Each infectious disease has its own specific signs and symptoms. General signs and symptoms common to a number of infectious diseases include fever, diarrhoea, fatigue. muscle aches, coughing.

A patient has to tell the symptoms to the doctor because the doctor cannot see or feel them. Symptoms only indicate that the patient is suffering by diseases but they do not indicate what disease.

Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases:

Diagnosis means a process of identifying the disease from symptoms and signs. Apart from knowing symptoms and observing signs, a doctor may measure temperature, blood pressure, the bodyweight of the patient.

The doctor on this basis of initial diagnosis may prescribe some initial tests like complete Blood Check (CBC), urine routine, stool routine, blood and urine sugar level, etc. to narrow the possible diagnostic options and choose initial treatments.

Treatment of Infectious Diseases:

For Reducing Symptoms:

This treatment is done only for the comfort of the patient because this treatment does not cure diseases but reduces symptoms. For e.g., If the patient is suffering from pain can be given a painkiller. The painkiller does not remove the cause of the pain or treat the diseases but reduces the perception of pain. Similarly, a cough syrup clears the respiratory tract but does not act on the cause of the infection.

Diseases like influenza do not have a cure. In this case, a medication which reduces the aches and fever are prescribed.

For Elimination of Disease:

The agents causing infectious diseases are viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoan, parasites, and worms. They differ from each other in many ways. A single drug cannot kill them all.  Hence in such treatment doctor has to focus on each type of infectious agent separately.

Biochemical Pathway: A number of biochemical processes going on inside the living cell. During these biochemical processes energy and some chemical substances are produced. The energy and the substances produce are essential for the proper life function of the cell.  Scientists study the biochemistry of the infectious agent to find out which of these processes can be attached by the drug. The drug should be such that it should not harm the biochemical processes of the human being or animal to whom the drug is administered.

Antibiotics: Antibiotics are the drugs which are used for curing of diseases produced by bacteria. There is a wide range of antibiotics which attack different processes and structure in bacteria to kill them or to stop their growth. Antibiotic Penicillin stops the production of a compound needed for making cell wall in bacteria. The cell content of bacteria grows but the cell was is prevented from expanding due to unavailability of the material for it and under pressure from internal content, the cell bursts and the bacteria is killed. Other types of antibiotics act on other processes in bacteria such as protein synthesis.

Antibiotics Do Not Work on Viruses:

Viruses are not cells. They are genetic material inside protein cover.   They do not have cytoplasm or cell organelles, hence no biochemical processes occur in the. To multiply they enter the cell of a living organism (hos).

Viruses use resources of the host to produce their copies. Antibiotics act on biochemical processes of the infecting agent. As the biochemical processes are absent in viruses, there is no effect of antibiotics on viruses.

Science > Biology > Applied Biology > Human Health and Diseases > Treatment of Infectious Diseases

The post Treatment of Infectious Diseases appeared first on The Fact Factor.

Communicable diseases are those diseases which spread from one person to another through a variety of ways that include: contact with blood and bodily fluids; breathing in an airborne virus; or by being bitten by an insect. They are spread by pathogens like viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, helminths, and certain arthropods, etc.

The possible connection between living organisms and disease (cause of communicable diseases) was first proposed by Italian physician Fracastorius in 1546. He proposed that syphilis is caused by virus Contaginum vivam through live contact. Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch (1876-85) proposed the Germ Theory of Disease (related to communicable diseases). Which states that “The germ theory of disease states that certain diseases are caused by specific germs or infectious agents”.

Koch collected rod-shaped anthrax bacteria from farm animals that had died of the disease and used them to infect healthy mice. He also carried out a control experiment, using exactly the same method but substituting the anthrax bacilli with blood from healthy farm animals. The anthrax-infected mice developed the disease and died, but the control mice remained healthy: Koch now had clear evidence that the anthrax bacteria had caused the disease.

The Reservoir of Infection:

Any person, animal, plant, soil or substance in which an infectious agent normally lives and multiplies is called the reservoir of infection. The reservoir typically harbors the infectious agent without injury to itself and serves as a source from which other individuals can be infected.

The infectious agent primarily depends on the reservoir for its survival. It is from the reservoir that the infectious substance is transmitted to a human or another susceptible host.

The soil is a reservoir of Clostridium tetani. Air is a reservoir of bacterial cysts of tuberculosis, diphtheria, the virus of measles and mumps and other diseases causing bacteria. Food and water are reservoirs for the cyst of cholera, typhoid, Entamoeba histolytica and helminths like Taenia, Ascaris, and Wuchereria, etc. Carriers or vectors are those living organisms that spread pathogens from an infected person to healthy person but themselves are not affected. Vectors are the organisms that transmit disease but itself remains uninfected and disease-free. Carriers are the organisms that transmit disease itself are infected but remain disease-free.

Carriers of Communicable Diseases:

How Pathogens Cause Disease?

Different pathogens act in different ways. Some produce a poisonous substance called toxins. While other invade cells or tissues and produce toxin. The disease symptoms appear only after the lapse of some time, during which period the microbes multiply rapidly. The period between the infection and the appearance of signs of a disease is called the incubation period. The symptoms may be fever, headache, nausea, and vomiting in the body of the host.

Bacteria:

Bacteria stick to a certain cell type. They are able to colonize or penetrate the cell’s surface. If the host is immune to the bacteria due to previous exposure or vaccination, these organisms may not be able to cause disease. The person’s immune system detects their presence and eliminates them. Penetrating the cell surface can result in the destruction of the cell or will allow the bacteria to move inside the cell. Once colonized or inside a cell, bacteria often produce toxins: poisonous substances that cause disease.

However, if there is an imbalance in the host (non-immune), the bacteria is virulent. Small numbers are capable of causing illness, If there is exposure to large numbers of microbes that can paralyse or overcome the immune system, and the host is a nutritious target, then disease may result. Bacteria tend to be less tissue-specific and non-discriminatory than viruses and can cause a variety of infections once they have invaded the host.

Bacteria cause pneumonia,  tetanus, tuberculosis and cholera.

Viruses:

They must invade a cell (its host) to reproduce.  If the host is immune to the virus due to previous exposure or vaccination, these organisms may not be able to cause disease. The person’s immune system detects their presence and eliminates them. However, if there is an imbalance in the host (non-immune), the microbe is virulent.  once inside a cell, bacteria often produce toxins: poisonous substances that cause disease. The host cell burst. Thus there is multi-killing of cells. Viruses cause diseases such as common cold, measles, and influenza.

• Lytic Infections: The virus enters a cell, uses the cell’s resources to make copies of itself, and causes the cell to burst, releasing more virus to the organism. e.g. Common Cold, Influenza
• Lysogenic Infections: A virus integrates its DNA into the DNA of the host cell, forcing the host cell to replicate the viral DNA with every regular DNA replication. e.g. HIV, Hepatitis B.

The mass killing of cells can cause a wide range of diseases. The intestinal cells reproduce rapidly any infection of these cells does not last long and no permanent damage is done. e.g. Stomach Flu and Rotavirus

The viral infection of neurons, which cannot be replaced can cause permanent damage including paralysis e.g. Encephalitis and Viral Meningitis

The viral infection of immune system cells can disable a person’s ability to defend itself against pathogens. e.g. Lupus and HIV

Fungi:

Fungi thrive in warm, moist environments. Microscopic fungi normally colonize dead skin and hair. Occasionally the fungus can invade the skin or can be inhaled, causing infection through the release of toxins. e.g. Athlete’s Foot, Jock Itch, Ringworm. Fungi not only produce diseases but they attack food surfaces.

Protists:

Protists commonly invade the bloodstream (Malaria and African Sleeping Sickness) or the intestines (Dysentery). Protists are large enough that the body tries to fight them off, causing illness. Protists can release waste that causes a severe reaction or infection.

Nutrients meant for the host are used by the protist, and any disease related to lack of nutrients may occur. Protozoa cause malaria and amoebic dysentery.

Worms:

Animals generally get worms by ingesting their eggs, which then mature inside the warm, nutrient-rich body. Worms latch onto a tissue and consume cells and nutrients intended for the host, often leading to nutrient deficiency. Some worms burrow into tissue and cause infection in the host.

Previous Topic: Disease

Next Topic: Transmission and Types of Communicable Diseases

Science > Biology > Applied Biology > Human Health and Diseases > Communicable or Infectious Diseases

The post Communicable or Infectious Diseases appeared first on The Fact Factor.