Epidemiology

[blank_start]Endemic[blank_end]: disease always in population at low frequency [blank_start]Epidemic[blank_end]: high numbers of people in population infected in short time [blank_start]Pandemic[blank_end]: epidemic that occurs over wide area

[blank_start]Florence Nightingale[blank_end], founder of medical statistics

[blank_start]John Snow[blank_end], Father of Epidemiology

[blank_start]Descriptive[blank_end]: observing the distribution of a disease in a population [blank_start]Analytic[blank_end]: investigating a hypothesis about the cause of a disease by studying how exposures relate to disease

What are the three characteristics examined to study the cause for disease in analytic epidemiology?

[blank_start]Asymptomatic carriers[blank_end]: same species, shed microbes [blank_start]Zoonotic carriers[blank_end]: different species, shed microbes [blank_start]Environmental reservoirs[blank_end]: soil, etc.

[blank_start]Fomites[blank_end] (inanimate objects) Skin-to-skin [blank_start]Vectors[blank_end] (different species) [blank_start]Mechanical Vector[blank_end] (microbe’s life cycle doesn’t include this species) [blank_start]Biological Vector[blank_end] (microbe's life cycle does include this species)

Fill in the blanks for the pathogenesis of Bacillus anthracis [blank_start]Cutaneous[blank_end]: skin infection -> black lesion -> [blank_start]treatable[blank_end] [blank_start]Gastrointestinal[blank_end]: ingested -> ulceration and necrosis of intestines -> [blank_start]lethal[blank_end] [blank_start]Inhalation[blank_end]: lung infection -> lung damage -> blood infection -> lethal

You are an epidemiologist attempting to determine how a fever-inducing infection is being transmitted throughout a community. You identify the index case and determine that the only connection between the index case and the next patient is a dog owned by the second patient who had eaten food scraps out of the garbage can at the first patient’s home. The dog did not get sick. How would you classify the dog in the transmission route of the disease?

Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. B. burgdorferi can survive without iron, as it uses manganese in place of iron-sulfur clusters in its enzymes. Typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. What type of reservoirs are involved in Lyme disease transmission?