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Epidemiology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Pathogen | Anything that can cause sickness. Examples: bacteria, viruses, fungi and protists that cause disease |
| Pandemic | A worldwide outbreak of an infectious disease. Examples include Bubonic Plague, 1918 Spanish Flu, and HIV/AIDS. |
| Epidemic | An outbreak of an infectious disease in a particular community or region. |
| Vaccine | A substance consisting of weakened, dead, or incomplete portions of viruses that produces an immune response in the body to that virus. |
| Agent | The pathogen causes the disease. |
| Host | The organism that is harmed by the disease. |
| Vector | A disease vector is an organism that carries a disease from one host to another. Many vectors are insects. For example, malaria involves a mosquito vector, and Lyme disease involves a tick vector. |
| Transmission | Refers to the method by which an infectious disease is passed from person to person. Examples include through the air, through bodily fluids, fecal-oral, etc. |