1.

Differentiate infection from disease

dis·ease (d -z z )
n.
1. A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such
as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or
symptoms.
2. A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.
3. Obsolete Lack of ease; trouble.

disease [dɪˈziːz]
n
1. (Medicine / Pathology) any impairment of normal physiological function affecting all or part of an
organism, esp a specific pathological change caused by infection, stress, etc., producing characteristic
symptoms; illness or sickness in general
2. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Plant Pathology) a corresponding condition in plants
3. any situation or condition likened to this the disease of materialism Related adj pathological

[from Old French desaise; see DIS-1, EASE]

Infection: The growth of a parasitic organism within the body. (A parasitic organism is one that lives on or in
another organism and draws its nourishment therefrom.) A person with an infection has another organism (a
"germ") growing within him, drawing its nourishment from the person.

The term "infection" has some exceptions. For example, the normal growth of the usual bacterial flora in the intestinal tract is
not usually considered an infection. The same consideration applies to the bacteria that normally inhabit the mouth.

: the act or result of affecting injuriously

2
: an INFECTIVE agent or material contaminated with anINFECTIVE agent

3
a : the state produced by the establishment of an INFECTIVEagent in or on a suitable hostb : a
disease resulting from infection

4
: an act or process of INFECTING; also : the establishment of a pathogen in its host after invasion

5
: the communication of emotions or qualities through example or contact

. Invasion by and multiplication of pathogenic microorganisms in a bodily part or tissue, which may produce
subsequent tissue injury and progress to overt disease through a variety of cellular or toxic mechanisms.
b. An instance of being infected.
c. An agent or a contaminated substance responsible for one's becoming infected.
d. The pathological state resulting from having been infected.
2. An infectious disease.
3.
a. Moral contamination or corruption.
b. Ready communication of an emotion or attitude by contact or example.
infection [ɪnˈfɛkʃən]
n
1. (Medicine / Pathology) invasion of the body by pathogenic microorganisms
2. (Medicine / Pathology) the resulting condition in the tissues
3. (Medicine / Pathology) an infectious disease
4. the act of infecting or state of being infected
 5. an agent or influence that infects
6. persuasion or corruption, as by ideas, perverse influences, etc.

2. Differentiate virulence from pathogenicity.

Pathogenicity is he ability of a microorganism to cause disease.
Virulence is degree of pathogenicity of a organism. it is indicated as fatality rates or ability to
invade a host tissue and cause disease.

Pathogenicity, virulence, transmissibility and all that

Category: biology
Posted on: June 13, 2006 7:20 AM, by revere
Time out for a bit of infectious disease terminology. The words pathogenic, virulent and transmissible get
tossed around a lot when talking about the bird flu virus and the possibilities of a pandemic. They are
sometimes used interchangeably. They aren't interchangeable, however, and their differences are important
to understanding talk about bird flu.

Let's start with one other term, the pre-requisite for the other three, infectivity. Viruses are bits of genetic
material and associated proteins that do essentially one thing and one thing only: make copies of
themselves. That's it. They aren't even capable of doing that on their own. They need to hijack the
machinery of a living organism's own reproductive capacity to make their self-copies. They do this by
infecting some host cell, that is, getting into the cell of an organism and taking over its cell reproduction
workshop which the virus then uses to make copies of itself. Each virus has particular organisms and cells
in that organism it uses for this. the organisms (animal, plant, bacteria) it can do this in is called its host
range. If the host has a lot of different kinds of cells and tissues (as humans do), it is usual for the virus to
restrict itself to one or a few types of cells. In humans, for example, the influenza virus seems to infect
mainly cells within the respiratory tract and only some of the cells, at that. The ability to replicate within a
host cell is called infection.

If cells can be infected it doesn't mean the host will suffer for it, however. Some viruses can infect cells
without apparent harm to the host. On the other hand, we also know that infecting cells can be bad for the
host and if the interruption in host structure and function is sufficiently great, the host becomes sick
(diseased). Pathogenicity is the ability of a virus to cause disease in a host it infects. Usually whether the
host suffers from infection is also modulated by the state of the host's health, age and factors in the
environment. Pathogenicity (the ability to cause disease) is thus not something inherent in the virus but a
combination of virus, host and environment.

The sickness or disease the infection causes can be mild to really bad. Virulence is the ability of a
pathogenic virus to cause really bad disease. Influenza A/H5N1 and the common cold both cause disease.
H5N1 is virulent, a cold virus is not. Thus pathogenicity and virulence are not the same thing. Virulent
viruses are pathogenic but not necessarily the reverse. Pathogenic viruses need not be virulent if they don't
cause serious disease.
What about H5N1, then, also designated a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza virus (HPAI). This is
accepted terminology and refers to the fact that most influenza viruses are not very virulent in birds. If
they are virulent, killing the birds in short order, they are designated HPAI. Doesn't this contradict the
terminology we just set out? Shouldn't they be called Highly Virulent Avian Influenza viruses? Yes. So sue
me. Or rather sue whoever it was that misnamed them. If they had read this post, they'd have called them
HVAI instead of HPAI.
Finally, pathogenicity is not the same as transmissibility. Transmissibility refers to the ability to pass from
one person to another. Rabies virus is a virulent pathogen, but it transmissible from person to person. The
common cold is transmissible (or better, easily transmissible) and pathogenic but not virulent. H5N1 so far
is not very transmissible from person to person but is easily transmissible from bird to bird and is virulent
for both (and of course, pathogenic for both).

Why is the terminology important? It is important only because it refers to distinct biological phenomena.
Infectivity, pathogenicity, virulence and transmissibility all have their own determinants. While we know
what some of these determinants are, we still haven't been able to put all the pieces together into a coherent
and satisfying picture. The more we learn with our powerful new tools of molecular biology, the less we
seem to know, if we use as a reference what we thought we once knew. It's not all in the sequences for a
virus, any more than understanding human biology ended with specifying the human genome. There is a
great deal of truly elegant and important work being done at the virology bench. We can hope that soon,
infectivity, pathogenicity, virulence and transmissibility will be better understood.

But our success in weathering a pandemic, should one occur, will still come down to the social structures we
employ to manage its consequences.