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Widespread non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer are not included. An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time; in meningococcal infections , an attack rate in excess of 15 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks is considered ...
A zoonosis is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen that can jump from a non-human host to a human. [35] Major diseases such as Ebola virus disease and salmonellosis are zoonoses. HIV was a zoonotic disease transmitted to humans in the early part of the 20th century, though it has now evolved into a separate human-only disease. [36]
A contagious disease is an infectious disease that can be spread rapidly in several ways, including direct contact, indirect contact, and Droplet contact. [1] [2] These diseases are caused by organisms such as parasites, bacteria, fungi, and viruses. While many types of organisms live on the human body and are usually harmless, these organisms ...
A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people; it must also be infectious. For instance, cancer is responsible for many deaths but is not considered a pandemic because the disease is not contagious —i.e. easily transmissible—and not even simply infectious . [ 15 ]
By convention, a communicable disease outbreak is declared over when a period of twice the incubation period of the infectious disease has elapsed without identification of any new case, however, for organisms with a short incubation period (e.g. fewer than ten days), a period of three times the incubation period is preferred. [11]
An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable disease, is an illness resulting from an infection. Infections can be caused by a wide range of pathogens, most prominently bacteria and viruses. [2] Hosts can fight infections using their immune systems.
In a small study of 26 decedents, [better source needed] the pandemized COVID-19 and infection-related disease were "major contributors" to patients' death. [12] Such deaths are sometimes evaluated via excess deaths per capita – the COVID-19 pandemic deaths between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021, are estimated to be ~18.2 million.
Human infectious diseases may be characterized by their case fatality rate (CFR), the proportion of people diagnosed with a disease who die from it (cf. mortality rate).It should not be confused with the infection fatality rate (IFR), the estimated proportion of people infected by a disease-causing agent, including asymptomatic and undiagnosed infections, who die from the disease.