An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce.[1] 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. Mammalian hosts react to infections with an innate response, often involving inflammation, followed by an adaptive response.
Specific medications used to treat infections include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, antiprotozoals,[3] and antihelminthics. Infectious diseases resulted in 9.2 million deaths in 2013 (about 17% of all deaths).[4] The branch of medicine that focuses on infections is referred to as infectious diseases.[5]
Types
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Infections are caused by infectious agents (pathogens) including:
Bacteria (e.g. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Clostridium botulinum, and Salmonella spp.)
Viruses and related agents such as viroids. (E.g. HIV, Rhinovirus, Lyssaviruses such as Rabies virus, Ebolavirus and Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2)
Fungi, further subclassified into:
Ascomycota, including yeasts such as Candida (the most common fungal infection); filamentous fungi such as Aspergillus; Pneumocystis species; and dermatophytes, a group of organisms causing infection of skin and other superficial structures in humans.[6]
Basidiomycota, including the human-pathogenic genus Cryptococcus.[7]
Parasites, which are usually divided into:[8]
Unicellular organisms (e.g. malaria, Toxoplasma, Babesia)
Macroparasites[9] (worms or helminths) including nematodes such as parasitic roundworms and pinworms, tapeworms (cestodes), and flukes (trematodes, such as schistosomes). Diseases caused by helminths are sometimes termed infestations, but are sometimes called infections.
Arthropods such as ticks, mites, fleas, and lice, can also cause human disease, which conceptually are similar to infections, but invasion of a human or animal body by these macroparasites is usually termed infestation.
Prions (although they do not secrete toxins)
Signs and symptoms
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The signs and symptoms of an infection depend on the type of disease. Some signs of infection affect the whole body generally, such as fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, fevers, night sweats, chills, aches and pains. Others are specific to individual body parts, such as skin rashes, coughing, or a runny nose.[10]
In certain cases, infectious diseases may be asymptomatic for much or even all of their course in a given host. In the latter case, the disease may only be defined as a "disease" (which by definition means an illness) in hosts who secondarily become ill after contact with an asymptomatic carrier. An infection is not synonymous with an infectious disease, as some infections do not cause illness in a host.[11]
Bacterial or viral
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As bacterial and viral infections can both cause the same kinds of symptoms, it can be difficult to distinguish which is the cause of a specific infection.[12] Distinguishing the two is important, since viral infections cannot be cured by antibiotics whereas bacterial infections can.[13]