Contractible disease definition of Contractible disease in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

epidemic, outbreak of disease that affects a much greater number of people than is usual for the locality or that spreads to regions where it is ordinarily not present. A disease that tends to be restricted to a particular region (endemic disease) can become epidemic if nonimmune persons are present in large numbers (as in time of war or during pilgrimages), if the infectious agent is more virulent than usual, or if distribution of the disease is more easily effected. Cholera cholera (kŏl`ərə) or Asiatic cholera, acute infectious disease caused by strains of the bacterium
..... Click the link for more information. and plague plague, any contagious, malignant, epidemic disease, in particular the bubonic plague and the black plague (or Black Death), both forms of the same infection.
..... Click the link for more information. , endemic in parts of Asia, can become epidemic under the above conditions, as can dysentery dysentery (dĭs`əntĕr'ē)
..... Click the link for more information. and many other infections. Epidemics may also be caused by new disease agents in the human population, such as the Ebola virus Ebola virus (ēbō`lə), a member of a family (Filovirus) of viruses that cause hemorrhagic fevers.
..... Click the link for more information. . A worldwide epidemic is known as a pandemic, e.g., the influenza influenza or flu, acute, highly contagious disease caused by a virus; formerly known as the grippe. There are three types of the virus, designated A, B, and C, but only types A and B cause more serious contagious infections.
..... Click the link for more information. pandemic of 1918 or the AIDS AIDS or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, fatal disease caused by a rapidly mutating retrovirus that attacks the immune system and leaves the victim vulnerable to infections, malignancies, and neurological disorders.
..... Click the link for more information. pandemic beginning in the 1980s. A disease is said to be sporadic when only a few cases occur here and there in a given region. Epidemic disease is controlled by various measures, depending on whether transmission is through respiratory droplets, food and water contaminated with intestinal wastes, insect vectors, or other means. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), agency of the U.S. Public Health Service since 1973, with headquarters in Atlanta; it was established in 1946 as the Communicable Disease Center.
..... Click the link for more information. tracks epidemics in the United States.

See also epdemiology epidemiology, field of medicine concerned with the study of epidemics , outbreaks of disease that affect large numbers of people. Epidemiologists, using sophisticated statistical analyses, field investigations, and complex laboratory techniques, investigate the cause
..... Click the link for more information. .

epidemic (redirected from Contractible disease)

epidemic
(redirected from Contractible disease)