Microbiology and Immunology 2500A/B Lecture 1: Part 1 - Microbiology and Immunology

• School: Western University
• Department: Microbiology and Immunology
• Course: Microbiology and Immunology 2500A/B
• Professor: Dontremember

Document Summary

It protects us from microorganisms with the potential to cause infectious diseases, these are pathogenic micro organisms, we call them pathogens. These include bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi, we will talk about bacteria and viruses, because these are the most prevalent pathogens in society. There are many pathogens that can cause serious human infections (hundreds), contact with pathogens is inevitable because they are everywhere. About 50 million micro organisms are inhaled in every breath, or in 1ml of sea water. Infectious disease are the leading cause of death world wide, however life expectancy has increased over the years, this is largely due to the control of infectious diseases, the best way to control them is through vaccine. We have a chain of infection, which must occur to have transmission, we start with the pathogen, it has a reservoir, where it lives and replicates could be a person, animals, food, etc.