Antimicrobial resistance

Infectious Diseases

Infectious diseases, also known as contagious diseases or transmissible diseases, and include communicable diseases, comprise clinically evident illness (i.E., characteristic medical signs and/or symptoms of disease) resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism. In certain cases, infectious diseases may be asymptomatic for much or all of their course. Infectious pathogens include some viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multicellular parasites, and aberrant proteins known as prions. These pathogens are the cause of disease epidemics, in the sense that without the pathogen, no infectious epidemic occurs.

Transmission of pathogen can occur in various ways including physical contact, contaminated food, body fluids, objects, airborne inhalation, or through vector organisms. Infectious diseases that are especially infective are sometimes called contagious and can be easily transmitted by contact with an ill person or their secretions. Infectious diseases with more specialized routes of infection, such as vector transmission or sexual transmission, are usually regarded as contagious but do not require medical quarantine of victims.

The term infectivity describes the ability of an organism to enter, survive and multiply in the host, while the infectiousness of a disease indicates the comparative ease with which the disease is transmitted to other hosts. An infection is not synonymous with an infectious disease, as some infections do not cause illness in a host.

Top 5 Infectious Diseases: Severity And Risks To Know

Infectious diseases remain a significant public health challenge in India. An enormous number of Indians still die each year from infectious diseases, despite the fact that fatalities from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are on the rise. As per data on the burden of communicable diseases, the overall number of deaths from infectious diseases increased by 86% to 12,598 in 2021 from 6,767 in 2019.Among the number of infectious diseases prevalent in the country, Tuberculosis, Typhoid, Dengue, Malaria, and Pneumonia pose significant challenges to the healthcare system in India. TuberculosisAround 2.55 million cases of tuberculosis were notified last year. This remains the highest number in decades since the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme began. The India TB Report 2024 highlights risk factors like undernourishment, HIV, and diabetes. The data also demonstrates that 95% of individuals identified with the virus received treatment in India, meeting the country's 2023 target. Although screenings have improved, drug-resistant TB remains a concern, with over 63,000 cases identified.

The need to address the rise in CVDs in young adults - a silent epidemic in India

TyphoidLast year, there was around a 30% rise in the cases of typhoid during the monsoon. The main cause and challenge remain drug-resistant typhoid. Typhoid affects around 45 lakh people annually, causing around 9000 deaths in India. In urban India, typhoid incidence is still high. Doctors suggest particularly children and those with compromised immune systems receive a typhoid vaccine, i.E., a conjugated vaccine (TCV) and a non-conjugated polysaccharide vaccine (ViCPS), to avoid complications. DengueAround 2 lakh cases of dengue were registered till mid-November last year. The cases have been prevalent in major cities like Delhi and Bangalore. Viruses thrive in warmer temperatures. Rising temperatures create an optimal condition for Aedes mosquitoes to survive and proliferate. Severe dengue can result in shock, organ damage, internal bleeding, and even death. Severe dengue is a greater risk for infants and pregnant women. Dengue vaccines are still in trials in India.MalariaIn 2022, India recorded the most number of malaria cases, i.E., about 66% of 5.2 million in Southeast Asia. Individuals who are more vulnerable to severe illnesses include young children and babies, elderly people, pregnant women, and their unborn children. Malaria can also sometimes be fatal with complications like breathing problems, low blood sugar, anemia, organ failure, and cerebral malaria.PneumoniaAn infection of the lungs, pneumonia is yet another prevalent infectious disease in India. 'Walking Pneumonia,' a milder form of pneumonia, became a concern last year. Moreover, rising cases of respiratory issues among the natives can keep you at risk of the disease. Depending on the type of pathogen affecting, there are three types of medications available - antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial. Sometimes oxygen therapy and IV fluids may also be used in the treatment. Infants and old people above 65 years of age are more at risk of developing this disease.

In conclusion, the burden of infectious diseases in India, including TB, Typhoid, Dengue, Malaria, and Pneumonia, remains substantial, impacting families and communities across the country. While progress has been made in improving access to healthcare and implementing preventive measures, significant challenges persist, highlighting the need for continued efforts in disease surveillance, healthcare infrastructure development, and vaccination programs to mitigate the impact of these diseases on public health.(Author: Dr Neha Rastogi Panda, Consultant-Infectious Diseases, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram)

Infectious Disease, An Overlooked Climate Change Impact: How Leaders Can Help

Dr. Kamran Khan is a practicing infectious disease physician and the CEO & founder of BlueDot — an infectious disease intelligence company.

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After a summer of climate turmoil, from Canadian wildfires to New York City flash floods, many organizations are taking stock of the risks and costs of climate change. The list is long: reduced worker productivity due to extreme heat, supply chain disruptions, decreased output, rising energy and insurance costs and more.

But the impacts of climate change reach beyond weather events, and no example illustrates the problem better than infectious diseases. The same human activities that drive climate change are also driving new infectious disease risks. It's another factor that people and businesses will need to prepare for.

Understanding The Issues

Once you connect the dots, you realize how unprepared we are. Consider the example of land deforestation, which disrupts ecosystems, forcing wildlife to move into unfamiliar habitats. This increases the chances of interaction between human settlements and microbes—including some humanity may have yet to encounter—crossing from wild animals to domestic ones or even directly to humans.

Rising global temperatures also impact the geographical ranges of animals and insects—and the diseases they carry. Southern Canada, which until recently was largely unaffected by Lyme disease, is now a welcoming environment for Lyme-carrying ticks. Research by my own organization projects that America's eastern seaboard and much of eastern Canada will become a breeding ground for the Aedes mosquito—an important disease carrying insect—within the next 10 years.

The rise of extreme weather events in populated areas also leads to an increase in the incidence of waterborne as well as vector-borne diseases. Torrential floods in Pakistan last year led to spikes in cases of leptospirosis, diarrhea, malaria and respiratory infections. Extreme weather events disrupt human settlements and force human migration. This puts increased pressure on health care systems at migrant destinations and has the potential to introduce new diseases spread by humans.

What Leaders Can Do

I admit that the chain reactions I describe above are simplified. Climate change takes place across a long time horizon, the cumulative result of many different factors. But we can still anticipate what its impacts will look like. Our research on the Aedes mosquito is a case in point. We can predict that dengue fever and other viral diseases will be able to spread in previously unaffected cities around the world within a decade. We can't yet say precisely where it will first expand, but we can still prepare for the eventuality.

As companies assess the risks of climate change to their business, I believe they must also make infectious disease part of their analysis and put plans in place to build resilient organizations that are able to withstand the impacts of future outbreaks.

There are two key sectors that the rest of us rely upon when it comes to infectious diseases, and they'll need to make the biggest adjustments.

The first sector, governments and public health authorities, can act now to prepare for future outbreaks. If I were the chief medical officer of health of a major city, I'd be sending local teams abroad to help respond to outbreaks of unfamiliar diseases so that, when climate change brings those diseases to my city, I would have in-house experience in managing them.

For the second sector, the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries, evolving changes to the global landscape of infectious diseases will have a direct impact on their business. They need time to conduct research and development, run clinical trials, and manufacture and distribute vaccines, therapeutics and other medical countermeasures needed to prevent or control outbreaks.

Leveraging Prediction Models

Leaders in both sectors can benefit from using advanced data analytics and prediction models to quickly detect, assess and respond to new local or global disease threats. The best approach to using prediction models involves three steps.

1. Detect threats early, and look in the right places. Given how rapidly outbreaks can spread in our modern world, early warnings offer leaders valuable time. Organizations should know where in the world they need to be on the alert for infectious disease risk. In addition to the locations of corporate headquarters and operations centers, consider the locations of key partners and subsidiaries within global supply networks, where an outbreak at a single link can break an entire chain.

2. Assess the risk. Once a threat is identified, the next step is to anticipate what kind of impact it is likely to present. Some infections spread faster than others, while some cause more severe illness. Risk assessments will look different for organizations in different parts of the world, and will vary across the public and private sector.

3. Take measured action. Since every organization's risk tolerance will be different, leaders must decide what actions are appropriate for their organization and culture. Whether it's distributing supplies of personal protective equipment, enabling more remote work when outbreaks occur, or encouraging the use of healthcare benefits, businesses must decide which actions are best suited to their organization. The key is to avoid over-reacting or under-reacting, each of which carries significant costs.

In a world where machine intelligence is rapidly advancing, it's important to not forget about the critical role of human intelligence. The key challenge in using predictive intelligence is structuring the interface between machine learning and human expertise so that any predictive model is purpose-built to perform a specific task well.

While machine learning is now able to continuously process and identify patterns in massive datasets, it takes people to critically review outputs and ensure they are being interpreted correctly and applied in the real world appropriately. Bookending a predictive model with human expertise is what transforms data into actionable intelligence.

As we've seen many times, human beings are vigorous responders when dealing with an emergency. We are not always as effective at preparing for future threats. But it's never too late to get better at it. We can start now.

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