Questions tagged [infectious-diseases]
The infectious-diseases tag has no usage guidance.
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How was 2019-nCoV (Wuhan coronavirus) identified so quickly?
It seems that from the first few cases to identifying 2019-nCoV as a new disease happened very quickly. How were they able to identify this as a new disease and not an outbreak of a previously known ...
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Are there any documented instances of coronaviruses being directly transmitted from bats to humans?
Many human coronaviruses have ancestral host origins in species of bat. However, all instances I am aware of identified other animals as intermediary vectors:
SARS-CoV: Human ← Palm Civet / Raccoon ← ...
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What is the formula to calculate $R_0$ (basic reproduction number)?
What is the mathematical formula for $R_0$ and what does each variable represent?
I have tried searching this to no avail.
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Is COVID-19 more deadly than swine flu?
I have a question about the novel coronavirus and swine flu.
How do the death rates compare between the two diseases?
How do the transmissions and rate of transmission compare?
Was a vaccine ...
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What differentiates diseases like Covid-19 and Polio from the common cold
Why are vaccines required for our body's immune system to destroy viruses that cause the likes of Covid-19 or Polio, while viruses that cause the common-cold are self-limiting (go away on their own)? ...
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Is a nightly curfew an effective intervention strategy for limiting the spread of an infectious disease? [closed]
The governing bodies of several geographic areas hit by disease outbreaks will sometimes impose a nightly curfew on their citizens, restricting or limiting the ability of their citizens from going ...
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Difference between aerosol and droplet transmission for airborne diseases
I've been doing some pandemic reading and can't find why there is a distinction between transmission by aerosols and by droplets. Some articles give a size cutoff of 5 microns; how is that important?
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Examples of healthy lifelong asymptomatic carrier of a severe infectious disease?
I am curious, is there any known disease/infection that is very severe normally (patient suffers greatly and die easily without medical treatment), but ends up having little to no effect on the lives ...
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Why do gram-negative bacteria attack the digestive system more than gram-positive ones?
I was researching for a biology project on the subject of contagious infections of the digestive system (mainly the intestines) and almost all of the bacteria that came up (E.coli, Shigella, Cholera, ...
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From a hosts point of view, which comes first, effect of toxins on pathways or identification of toxins by immune system?
From a pure biology perspective, when a pathogen (gram-negative bacteria) affects a host by secreting toxins, what comes first, the effect of the toxin on the pathways or identification of the toxin ...
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Name of this kind of stain on fruits and how do they form
Last year I made some photos with avocados touched by some stains. They were even more delicious than the regular ones.
What's the name of such stains and how do they form? My guess is that they form ...
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Is there a Zipf law in epidemiology?
Are there cases where Zipf Law appears in epidemiology?
I ranked provinces of China by their coronavirus confirmed cases (2020-01-30 14:29):
4586, 428, 311, 278, 277, 200, 165, 162, 145, 142, 129,...
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How can a disease be transmissible animal-to-human but not human-to-human? [duplicate]
I have heard some debate about whether or not the Wuhan virus can be transmitted human-to-human, but this doesn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't it be able to? Are there diseases that can only be ...
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Is PrEP used for anything other than HIV?
In the field of HIV prevention, PrEP is an abbreviation of pre-exposure prophylaxis. This is a very generic term. Are any diseases other than HIV prevented using a similar approach? Do they use the ...
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Is slow growth a virulence factor?
Many slow-growth pathogens (e.g. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, lentivirus, Rhabdovirus, Leptospira spp) are difficult to treat. In addition, a review of 61 pathogens found that
slower growing ...
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Why is synthesis of tetanospasmin advantageous to C. tetani?
The tetanospasmin is a neurotoxin synthesised by some strains of C. tetani. It is the factor causing tetanus, but what is its role for the bacteria itself?
I do not believe the main objective of C. ...
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Are most pathogenic bacteria facultative anaerobes?
I know that S. aureus and most gram-negative rods are facultative anaerobes. In terms of number of species, are most human pathogen-associated bacteria facultative anaerobes?
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What disease does Saccharopolyspora erythraea cause?
For an examination assignment I have to find a disease caused by the bacterial species Saccharopolyspora erythraea, but I have searched the internet and have found no report of patients being infected ...
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Can a vaccine or antidote be administrated via gases or sprays?
On TV or in movies a gas or spray containing a vaccine/cure/antitoxin is released and everybody is saved. Is this something plausible in real life? Specific examples would be appreciated.
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what will be the effect of cockroach bite?
I know the cockroaches are creepy for humans. But I want to know why humans are afraid of cockroaches and what will be the effect of there bite on my body. Can I touch them or if they walk over my ...
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Viability of Toxoplasmosis oocysts on dry smooth surfaces
This is a weird question. My wife is terrified of contracting toxoplasmosis during pregnancy and I was hoping I could get an expert opinion here to potentially make her feel better.
She recently ...
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Influenza infections and drug design
Why is the neuraminidase used as a target for drugs against influenza virus instead of haemagglutinin? Is there some basic reason that this will make a more effective drug?
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Risks of latent viruses that reside in ancient genomes under research?
Some interesting research in reactivating mammoth genetic material (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40546-1) made me wonder what risks are inherent (or are not inherent) in reviving older ...
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Can endemic diseases be acute?
Diseases can be classified as :endemic ,or pandemic,...etc.
An endemic disease is an infectious disease which is generally or constantly found among people in a particular area.
Disease conditions ...
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We know that the hepatitis C virus can live on surfaces for at least six weeks. Maybe longer. The infectivity study ended after just six weeks; why?
Background
A paper has found that the hepatitis C virus (HCV) can remain infective for at least six weeks on ordinary household surfaces. You can see the free full text, or a summary for busy ...
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A study found that the hepatitis C virus can live on surfaces for six weeks. Did they end the study before the seventh week began?
A study once found that the hepatitis C virus (HCV) can remain infective for six weeks on ordinary household surfaces. You can see the free full text, or a summary for busy clinicians.
What happened ...
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Why are vaccines containing attenuated microorganisms preferable to those containing dead microorganisms instead?
My teacher said it more closely resembles a real infection but I didn't get that.
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Is it possible to contract the plague by kissing a wild chipmunk?"
I watched this cute video and I came to conclusion that the lady in the video is putting her life in danger. She kisses a wild chipmunk.
As I know, they have fleas, and fleas have a black plague. ...
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can one be infected with Naegleria fowleri by taking Steam?
will Naegleria fowleri be present in the steam molecules.
Many people take steam from hot water to get relief from sinus.
I read somewhere that Naegleria fowleri gets killed over 70 C. So steam will ...
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Was Myxomatosis Man Made?
I can't seem to find any conclusive information about the origin of Myxomatosis. According to Wikipedia
It was first observed in Uruguay in laboratory rabbits in the late 19th century. It was ...
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Why reaginic antibodies are absent in these types of syphilis?
According to Textbook of Microbiology and Immunology
2e, Subhash Chandra Parija, pg.no; 375
These(reaginic) antibodies do not appear in early primary syphilis, latent acquired syphilis of long ...
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How do PrP mutations lead to prion disease?
My understanding is:
The PrP gene in human cells is expressed as both PrP-c (normal protein) and PrP-sc (prion disease protein). This happens post transcriptionally, that is, the normal and the ...
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Are Measles patients infectious until death?
I'm examining a dataset of a measles outbreak, and for each patient I have the date of first appearance of symptoms $t_1$, date of appearance of rash $t_2$, and if applicable, date of death $t_d$. ...
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Strange white strings on cherry tree leaves
What could be the cause of these white strings on the leaves of our sour cherry tree? Is it some kind of fungus or an insect?
Also, i don't know if it's related or not, but on the other side of the ...
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Which infectious disease would increase global life expectancy the most if eradicated [closed]
In the 1700s it was estimated, by Daniel Bernoulli, that wiping out smallpox would increase global life expectancy by over three years. If we could wipe out one infectious disease today, which would ...
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Rabies transmission via barking
According to CDC, non-bite exposure includes scratches, abrasion, and contamination of the mucous membrane from a rabid animal's saliva.
So, is it possible to catch rabies if a rapid animal barks ...
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What effect does taking antibiotics unnecessarily have on future bacterial infections?
I have been told by my biology teacher that you shouldn't take antibiotics unnecessarily because "the body gets used to them" and it reduces the effectiveness of antibiotics against future bacterial ...
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Recommended reading to quickly get up to speed on infectious diseases
I am in the beginning stages of a capstone project for my master's in Data Science. For various reasons, I have landed on the subject of Clostridium difficile infection. My background is in Computer ...
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Is swimming pool water actually a weak topical medication?
I was inspired by this question.
Given that the chlorine levels in swimming pool water are so high that they can seriously harm amphibians, it seems logical that the water should also kill various ...
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Activity driven model threshold
So I am trying to figure out a threshold for an activity driven model. That is described in this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00469
That is I don't see how the researchers got ...
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Why does botulinum toxin cause only NMJ symptoms?
Botulinum toxin acts by preventing release of ACh by cleaving SNARE proteins. But if it is acting on snare proteins shouldn't all vesicle releases be effected? Why is it limited only to the ...
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Can disease resistance from vaccination be inherited?
If a person has taken a vaccine against a particular disease and is resistant to that disease, will his/her children will be resistant to that disease??
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What happened to pertussis incidence in the US between 1955 and 1974 and why?
The Wall Street Journal ran a great collection of infographics in 2015 superimposing the dates on which vaccination was introduced for various childhood diseases on their incidence:
http://graphics....
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Which eradicated viruses still have remaining stockpiles? [closed]
Other than smallpox, I'm curious to know if there are any other stockpiles of eradicated or nearly eradicated viruses, and if so where are they located?
Thank you.
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Free online image libraries of trachoma
I'm looking for an online source with images of the eye disease trachoma. I'm looking preferably for resources from a credible source that have images from each stage of the disease.
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How does the measeles virus form? [closed]
I would like to understand how (if possible) the measles virus could start to infect a population that was theoretically isolated from any other population group. Put another way, can the measles ...
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How can a waterborne disease be transmitted [closed]
If a disease is waterborne [as in it is based in the digestive tract], what ways can it be contracted other than the obvious drinking of infected water?
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Is the basic reproduction number unique?
Given any epidemic model of an infectious disease, there are various ways of computing a basic reproduction number($R_0$) such as; the next-generation method, survival function, largest eigenvalue of ...
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Can immune cells be recruited to an area of inflammation, and later go on to a second?
With regards to innate or adaptive immune cells... can naive/immature cells such as neutrophils, monocytes, macrophage/dendritic cells or adaptive T-cells be recruited to an area of inflammation, for ...
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compute contact mixing matrix from partnership degree data
In a discussion of sexual partnering, we are given the following information on a momentary degree distribution (as percentages):
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