Infectious Diseases Disease Control And Prevention Example For Students

Infectious Diseases : Disease Control And Prevention The human body is comprised of an abundance of microorganisms that are considered part of our normal and healthy microbiota.8 Most of these microorganisms are typically not injurious, but under certain conditions or when a patient is immunocompromised, some microorganisms may produce infectious diseases.7 Infectious diseases are ailments caused by the opportunistic pathogens already present in our bodies or other harmful microorganisms that were acquired from traveling, hospitals, outdoors, or encountering another infected human.8 According to Woolhouse and Gowtage-Sequeria, there are 1,407 recognized species of human pathogen, 58% of which are zoonotic and 177 are regarded as emerging or reemerging. 13 The leading public health institute is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and they are responsible for securing and progressing the health of the public by researching known and identifying new infectious diseases, preventing and regulating the spread of infectious diseases, providing accurate information to healthcare communities and to the general public, and implementing strategies to reinforce our public health system.3 Infectious diseases play a crucial role in public health because without the knowledge and analysis of them our population would not have the proper information to assure their health and our healthcare communities would not know what precautions to take when treating a patient with an infectious disease.3 According to the CDC, some of the major infectious diseases world-wide are tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, meningitis, and schistosomiasis.3 The disease this case study will discuss is the Ebola virus disease (EVD), ea rlier known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), EVD has an incredibly high risk of death, killing between 25-90% of people infected and because the natural reservoir host of EVD has not yet been identified, the way in which the virus first develops in a human at the beginning of an outbreak is undiscovered however, scientists suspect humans are infected by coming into contact with an infected animal or their bodily fluids such as a fruit bat or primate.11 After the initial contact, the virus is further spread through direct contact via breaks in skin or other mucosal surfaces.11 This virus belongs to the family Filoviridae and contains five different species, but only three of them correlate with the considerable outbreaks in Africa. Those three species are: Bundibugyo ebolavirus, Zaire ebolavirus, and Sudan ebolavirus.11 This case study focuses mainly on the species Zaire ebolavirus because it is the deadliest. Outline1 Biography2 Case Summary3 Differential Diagnosis Biography The patient is a 37-year old Australian white male, Ethan Williams, residing in Northmead, New South Wales, Australia with his wife of 5 years. His wife, Zoe Williams, is a 34-year old Australian who previously resided in Sydney before moving to Northmead with her husband. Zoe is a writer for a popular travel magazine based out of Sydney and attended the University of Sydney where she met Ethan. Zoe obtained her Bachelors in Journalism and ended up having a couple of classes with Ethan her sophomore year of college. Ethan is a professional photography journalist who is employed by National Geographic and generally travels to many different countries all over the world. He graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelors of Photography and a minor in Journalism. He is an extremely adventurous and curious person and thoroughly loves to explore the outdoors. In addition to exploring, Ethan also enjoys camping, hiking, diverse culture, astronomy, cooking, and trying new foods. Wh en he travels to different countries for work he often likes to do his own research to discover unique destinations to hike, photograph, and explore during his free time. He also likes to spend time with the natives and discover the best places to try all the ethnic foods of all the different destinations he travels to. Zoe equally enjoys the same hobbies as Ethan does and when she has free time she loves to travel with him on his business trips. Ethan has one younger sister who lives on the other side of Australia in Perth with their parents. He is extremely close to his sibling and parents, but all his travel makes it difficult to see them as often as he would like. Ethan and Zoe do not have any pets or children because of all the traveling they do, but they definitely want to start a family in the future. Media Deprivation Sample Essay3 Food poison is also more prevalent in developing countries like Africa because it is not very industrialized so you have a higher chance of coming into contact with contaminated food and water. Aside from that, Ethan is big on experiencing different foods so it can be assumed that he consumed contaminated food products. Another potential pathogen that should be considered is Cryptococcus, which causes fungal meningitis. This disease is one of the most common causes of adult meningitis in Africa and is thought to be transmitted by inhaling soil contaminated with bird droppings.3 Cryptococcus makes complete sense because Ethan recently traveled to Africa and he may have inhaled soil contaminated with bird droppings while exploring Sierra Leone and photographing all the wildlife, including birds. Finally, malaria can be considered a potential pathogen because traveling to sub-Saharan Africa has the greatest risk of getting malaria and the symptoms of ma laria are similar to those of EVD.3 The primary reasons why all the above pathogens should be considered is due to common symptoms, common place where they can be contracted, and under development of the country.