Infectious diseases mainly focus on clinical manifestations, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, treatment and preventive measures of various infectious diseases, with purposes of curing patients and saving lives, as well as prevention and control. Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic organisms. The causative agents may be a virus, bacterium, fungus, protozoan and others. After infecting humans, these pathogens can cause diseases that may be communicable and epidemics can occur under suitable conditions.

  Infectious diseases are closely linked with other disciplines including microbiology, molecular biology, immunology, epidemiology, pathology and diagnostics. It is important to have a basic understanding of these subjects and of their underlying theories and techniques to learn about infectious diseases.

Infectious diseases have caused enormous hardships to human populations over time. Nowadays, infectious diseases are still widespread and threaten to people’s health. In addition, new infectious diseases caused by mutated pathogens have emerged, such as SARS and COVID-19. Moreover, infectious diseases all over the world, such as Ebola, Zika, and MERS are also a big threaten to the public health. Therefore, research and study on the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases should be strengthened.

The principles of best practice in infection control are based on extensive research, and should be adopted in order to help prevent avoidable infections and to control existing ones. Infection control is especially important within healthcare settings, where the risk of infection to patients is greatly increased. An understanding of the infection process should lead to appropriate actions which help to protect patients, and healthcare workers themselves. Good infection control techniques adopted during patient care can assist greatly in preventing or reducing avoidable hospital-acquired infections.

There are important public health issues in the prevention and control of infection, including the general health and nutritional status of the public and their living conditions, such as housing, water and sanitation facilities. These influence the level of infectious disease in the community, which in turn affects the level of infection of those both in and outside of hospitals, thus affecting the burden on healthcare facilities.

Throughout history, microorganisms have spread deadly diseases and caused widespread epidemics that have threatened and altered human civilization. In the modern era, civic sanitation, water purification, immunization and antibiotics have dramatically reduced the overall morbidity and the mortality rates of infectious disease in more developed nations. Yet, much of the world is still ravaged by disease and epidemics; new threats constantly appear to challenge the most advanced medical and public health systems.

Although specific diseases may be statistically associated with particular regions or other demographics, disease does not recognize social class or political boundary. In our intimately connected global village, an outbreak of disease in a remote area may quickly transform into a global threat. Given the opportunity, the agents of disease may spread across the globe at the speed of modern travel, and also leap from animals to humans.

Victory in the ‘‘war’’ against infectious disease will require advances in science and advances in our understanding of our fragile environment and common humanity.

Courses in cell biology, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, human anatomy, histology and embryology, pathological anatomy, diagnostics, etc

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