INFECTION

Dr.Raghunandan Ramanathan
Tagore Medical College and Hospital
Rathinamangalam.
CLASSIFICATION OF ORGANISMS BASED
ON RELATIONSHIP WITH HOST
• Saprophytes are free-living microbes that
subsist on dead and decaying organic matter.

• Rarely cause infection.

• Bacillus subtilis infects devitalised tissues

causing oppurtunistic infection.
• Parasites are microbes that can establish
themselves and multiply in
the host.

Commensals do not cause damage to the host.

Normal bacterial flora of the body is mainly
commensals.

• Commensals can produce disease when host

resistance is lowered,i.e., oppurtunistic
infection.
• Pathogens are microorganisms that can
produce disease in the host.

• Infection is the lodgement and multiplication

of a parasite in or on the tissues of a host.

• Disease is a rare consequence of infection.

 CLASSIFICATION OF INFECTIONS

Primary infection
• The initial infection with a parasite in a host.

Reinfection
• Subsequent infections by the same parasite in
the host.
Secondary infection
• When a new parasite infects a host whose
resistance is already lowered by a preexisting
infectious disease.

Focal infection
• A condition where due to infection at
localised sites (appendix), generalised effects
are produced.
Cross-infection
• When a patient already has a disease, a new
infection is set up from another host or
external source.

Nosocomial infection
• Cross-infections occuring in the hospital.
Iatrogenic infection
• An infection which is induced by the physician
while performing procedures that are
diagnostic or therapeutic.
 BASED ON SOURCE OF INFECTION

ENDOGENOUS INFECTION
• Source of infection is within the host’s own
body.

EXOGENOUS INFECTION
• Source of infection is external to the host’s
body.
BASED ON THE CLINICAL EFFECTS OF
INFECTION
INAPPARENT INFECTION
• (subclinical infection)
• The clinical manifestations are not apparent.

ATYPICAL INFECTION
• The typical clinical manifestations of the
disease are not present.
LATENT INFECTION
• Some parasites, following infection, may
remain in tissues in a hidden form.

• They will proliferate and produce disease

when the host resistance is lowered.
LATENT INFECTION
SOURCES OF INFECTION

Insects

Human

Animals Soil, water,food

 HUMANS as sources of infection

PATIENTS

CARRIERS
• A person who harbours the pathogenic
organism without suffering any ill-effects
from it is a carrier.
 CARRIERS

• Healthy carrier
• Convalescent carrier
• Contact carrier
• Paradoxical carrier

• Based on duration of carrier state:

• Temporary carrier
• Chronic carrier
 ANIMALS

• Sources of human infection

• Maintain the parasite in nature
• Reservoir hosts
• ZOONOSIS
 INSECTS
• Arthropod-borne diseases transmitted by
blood-sucking insects.
• VECTORS :mites, lice, fleas
• Mechanical vectors
• Biological vectors
• Extrinsic incubation period
 SOIL AND WATER

• Water acts as a source of infection due to:

• Contamination with pathogenic organisms
• Presence of aquatic vectors

• Soil :
• Spores of tetanus bacillus , fungi and
parasites
 FOOD

• Contaminated food
• Pathogens in food may be due to:
external contamination (staphylococcus)
Pre-existent infection in meat or other animal
products (salmonellosis)
 METHODS OF TRANSMISSION OF
INFECTION
• Contact
• Inhalation
• Ingestion
• Inoculation
• Congenital
• Iatrogenic
CONTACT:
• Direct (Eg.STD like syphilis and gonorrhoea)
• Indirect (through fomites like pencils and
toys eg. Diphtheria, face towels in trachoma)

• Contagious disease: transmitted by direct

contact.
INHALATION
• Inhalation of secretions that remain
suspended in air (droplet nuclei)
INGESTION
• Ingestion of food or drink contaminated by
pathogens.
- waterborne (cholera)
-foodborne (food poisoning)
INOCULATION
Tetanus spore in wound
Rabies virus in dog bite
• CONGENITAL: from
mother to fetus
in utero through
placental barrier
( vertical transmission)
Teratogenic infections
Eg: Intrautreine infection
with Rubella virus in
first trimester of
pregnancy interferes
with organogenesis and
leads to congenital
malformations.
• INSECTS: as vectors

• IATROGENIC AND LABORATORY

INFECTIONS:
Through injections, LP, catheterisation, organ
transplant,etc.
 Bacterial virulence factors

Pathogenicity:
• Ability of a bacterial species to produce
disease

Virulence:
• Property of a microbial strain to produce
disease.
• Exaltation: enhancememt of virulence of a
strain.

• Attenuation: Reduction of virulence is

attenuation.
 VIRULENCE FACTORS

• Adhesion
• Invasiveness
• Toxigenicity
• Plasmids
• Bacteriophages
• Communicability
• Other bacterial products
 ADHESION

• Attachment of bacteria to body surfaces.

• Fimbriae or pili
• Colonisation factors
• Ligands or adhesins
INVASIVENESS

TOXIGENICITY
• Exotoxins
• Endotoxins

PLASMIDS
• Genes coding for enterotoxin production by
E.coli
• Multiple drug resistance plasmids
EXOTOXIN ENDOTOXIN

Proteins Lipopolysaccharides

Heat labile Heat stable

Actively secreted by cells into surrounding Part of cell wall, does not diffuse
medium

Separable from cultures by filtration Separable only by cell lysis

Specific pharmacologic effects Non-specific effects

Active in very minute doses Active in very large doses

Highly antigenic Weakly antigenic

Action specifically neutralised by antibody Ineffective

Action often enzymic Non-enzymic action

COMMUNICABILITY
• Ability of a parasite to spread from one host
to another.

BACTERIAL PRODUCTS
• Coagulase
• Fibrinolysin
• Hyaluronidase
• Hemolysins
 BIOFILMS

• Well-organised microcolonies of bacteria

enclosed in self-produced extra-cellular
polysaccharide matrices called glyocalyx.
• Bacterial appendages

• Infecting dose

• Route of infection
 TYPES OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

• Bacteremia

• Septicemia

• Pyemia
 DEPENDING ON SPREAD IN THE
COMMUNITY
• Endemic diseases
• Epidemic diseases
• Pandemic
• Prosodemic disease
Thank you