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Deep Learning Technology: Sebastian Arnold, Betty van Aken, Paul Grundmann, Felix A. Gers and Alexander Löser. Learning Contextualized Document Representations for Healthcare Answer Retrieval. The Web Conference 2020 (WWW'20)
Funded by The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy; Grant: 01MD19013D, Smart-MD Project, Digital Technologies
One strategy for the prevention of infection transmission between cats and people is to better educate people on the behaviour that puts them at risk for becoming infected.
Those at the highest risk of contracting a disease from a cat are those with behaviors that include: being licked, sharing food, sharing kithchen utensils, kissing, and sleeping with a cat. The very young, the elderly and those who are immunocompromised increase their risk of becoming infected when sleeping with their cats (and dogs). The CDC recommends that cat owners not allow a cat to lick your face because it can result in disease transmission. If someone is licked on their face, mucous membranes or an open wound, the risk for infection is reduced if the area is immediately washed with soap and water. Maintaining the health of the animal by regular inspection for fleas and ticks, scheduling deworming medications along with veterinary exams will also reduce the risk of acquiring a feline zoonosis.
Recommendations for the prevention of ringworm transmission to people include:
- regularly vacuuming areas of the home that pets commonly visit helps to remove fur or flakes of skin
- washing the hands with soap and running water after playing with or petting your pet.
- wearing gloves and long sleeves when handling cats infected with.
- disinfect areas the pet has spent time in, including surfaces and bedding.
- the spores of this fungus can be killed with common disinfectants like chlorine bleach diluted 1:10 (1/4 cup in 1 gallon of water), benzalkonium chloride, or strong detergents.
- not handling cats with ringworm by those whose immune system is weak in any way (if you have HIV/AIDS, are undergoing cancer treatment, or are taking medications that suppress the immune system, for example).
- taking the cat to the veterinarian if ringworm infection is suspected.
Cryptosporidiosis is a parasitic disease that is transmitted through contaminated food or water from an infected person or animal. Cryptosporidiosis in cats is rare, but they can carry the protozoan without showing any signs of illness. Cryptosporidiosis can cause profuse, watery diarrhea with cramping, abdominal pain, and nausea in people. Illness in people is usually self-limiting and lasts only 2–4 days, but can become severe in people with weakened immune systems. Cryptosporidiosis (Cryptosporidium spp.) Cats transmit the protozoan through their feces. The symptoms in people weight loss and chronic diarrhea in high-risk patients. More than one species of this genus can be acquired by people. Dogs can also transmit this parasite.
Disease endemic in Chhattisgarh South India, Sri Lanka, South America and Africa. It is presumed to be transmitted by exposure to the pathogen when taking a bath in stagnant water pools where animals also bathe.
They are treated with antiprotozoal agents. Recent papers have also proposed the use of viruses to treat infections caused by protozoa.
Protozoan infections are parasitic diseases caused by organisms formerly classified in the Kingdom Protozoa. They include organisms classified in Amoebozoa, Excavata, and Chromalveolata.
Examples include "Entamoeba histolytica", "Plasmodium" (some of which cause malaria), and "Giardia lamblia". "Trypanosoma brucei", transmitted by the tsetse fly and the cause of African sleeping sickness, is another example.
The species traditionally collectively termed "protozoa" are not closely related to each other, and have only superficial similarities (eukaryotic, unicellular, motile, though with exceptions). The terms "protozoa" (and protist) are usually discouraged in the modern biosciences. However, this terminology is still encountered in medicine. This is partially because of the conservative character of medical classification, and partially due to the necessity of making identifications of organisms based upon appearances and not upon DNA.
Protozoan infections in animals may be caused by organisms in the sub-class Coccidia (disease: Coccidiosis) and species in the genus "Besnoitia" (disease: Besnoitiosis).
Several pathogenic protozoans appear to be capable of sexual processes involving meiosis (or at least a modified form of meiosis). Included among these protozoans are "Plasmodium falciparum" (malaria), "Toxoplasma gondii" (toxoplasmosis), "Leishmania" species (leishmaniases), "Trypanosoma brucei" (African sleeping sickness), "Trypanosoma cruzi" (Chagas disease) and "Giardia intestinalis" (giardiasis).
Fever and sickness behavior and other signs of infection are often taken to be due to them. However, they are evolved physiological and behavioral responses of the host to clear itself of the infection. Instead of incurring the costs of deploying these evolved responses to infections, the body opts to tolerate an infection as an alternative to seeking to control or remove the infecting pathogen.
Subclinical infections are important since they allow infections to spread from a reserve of carriers. They also can cause clinical problems unrelated to the direct issue of infection. For example, in the case of urinary tract infections in women, this infection may cause preterm delivery if the person becomes pregnant without proper treatment.
"F. buski" is endemic in Asia including China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India. It has an up to 60% prevalence in India and mainland China and has an estimated 10 million human infections. Infections occur most often in school-aged children or in impoverished areas with a lack of proper sanitation systems.
"F. buski" was endemic in central Thailand, affecting about 2,936 people due to infected aquatic plants called water caltrops and the snail hosts which were associated with them. The infection, or the eggs which hatch in the aquatic environment, were correlated with the water pollution in different districts of Thailand such as Ayuthaya Province. The high incidence of infection was prevalent in females and children ages 10–14 years of age.
Immunodeficiency or immunosuppression can be caused by:
- Malnutrition
- Fatigue
- Recurrent infections
- Immunosuppressing agents for organ transplant recipients
- Advanced HIV infection
- Chemotherapy for cancer
- Genetic predisposition
- Skin damage
- Antibiotic treatment leading to disruption of the physiological microbiome, thus allowing some microorganisms to outcompete others and become pathogenic (e.g. disruption of intestinal flora may lead to "Clostridium difficile" infection
- Medical procedures
- Pregnancy
- Ageing
- Leukopenia (i.e. neutropenia and lymphocytopenia)
The lack of or the disruption of normal vaginal flora allows the proliferation of opportunistic microorganisms and will cause the opportunistic infection - bacterial vaginosis.
Rhinosporidiosis is a granulomatous disease affecting the mucous membrane of nasopharynx, oropharynx, conjunctiva, rectum and external genitalia. Though the floor of the nose and inferior turbinate are the most common sites, the lesions may appear elsewhere too. Traumatic inoculation from one site to others is common. Laryngeal rhinosporidiosis, too, has been described and may be due to inoculation from the nose during endotracheal intubation. After inoculation, the organism replicates locally, resulting in hyperplasia of host tissue and localised immune response.
- infection of nose and nasopharynx - 70%
- infection of palpebral conjunctiva - 15%
An individual may only develop signs of an infection after a period of subclinical infection, a duration that is called the incubation period. This is the case, for example, for subclinical sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS and genital warts. Individuals with such subclinical infections, and those that never develop overt illness, creates a reserve of individuals that can transmit an infectious agent to infect other individuals. Because such cases of infections do not come to clinical attention, health statistics can often fail to measure the true prevalence of an infection in a population, and this prevents the accurate modeling of its infectious transmission.
Even in areas of high prevalence, the frequency and severity of infection is not uniform within communities or families. A small proportion of community members harbour the majority of worms, and this depends on age. The maximum worm burden is at five to ten years of age, declining rapidly thereafter. Individual predisposition to helminthiasis for people with the same sanitation infrastructure and hygiene behavior is thought to result from differing immunocompetence, nutritional status, and genetic factors. Because individuals are predisposed to a high or a low worm burden, the burden reacquired after successful treatment is proportional to that before treatment.
Areas with the highest prevalence of helminthiasis are tropical and subtropical areas including sub-Saharan Africa, central and east Asia, and the Americas.
Latest estimates indicate that the total annual death toll which is directly attributable is as high as 135,000. The death toll due to the malnutrition link is likely to be much higher.
Opportunistic infections caused by Feline Leukemia Virus and Feline immunodeficiency virus retroviral infections can be treated with Lymphocyte T-Cell Immune Modulator.
Infection can be prevented by immersing vegetables in boiling water for a few seconds to kill the infective metacercariae, avoiding the use of untreated feces ("nightsoil") as a fertilizer, and maintenance of proper sanitation and good hygiene. Additionally, snail control should be attempted.
The World Health Organization estimates that globally more than 1.5 billion people (24% of the total population) have a soil-transmitted helminth infection. Over 270 million preschool-age children and over 600 million school-age children live in areas where these parasites are intensively transmitted, and are in need of treatment and preventive interventions. Latest estimates indicate that more than 880 million children are in need of treatment from STH infections.
By type of parasitic worm the breakdown is:
- approximately 807-1,121 million with ascaris
- approximately 576-740 million with hookworm
- approximately 604-795 million with whipworm
Each type of vertically transmitted infection has a different prognosis. The stage of the pregnancy at the time of infection also can change the effect on the newborn.
Babies can also become infected by their mothers during birth. Some infectious agents may be transmitted to the embryo or fetus in the uterus, while passing through the birth canal, or even shortly after birth. The distinction is important because when transmission is primarily during or after birth, medical intervention can help prevent infections in the infant.
During birth, babies are exposed to maternal blood, body fluids, and to the maternal genital tract without the placental barrier intervening. Because of this, blood-borne microorganisms (hepatitis B, HIV), organisms associated with sexually transmitted disease (e.g., "Neisseria gonorrhoeae" and "Chlamydia trachomatis"), and normal fauna of the genitourinary tract (e.g., "Candida albicans") are among those commonly seen in infection of newborns.
Systemic mycoses due to opportunistic pathogens are infections of patients with immune deficiencies who would otherwise not be infected. Examples of immunocompromised conditions include AIDS, alteration of normal flora by antibiotics, immunosuppressive therapy, and metastatic cancer. Examples of opportunistic mycoses include Candidiasis, Cryptococcosis and Aspergillosis.
Pseudomonas infection refers to a disease caused by one of the species of the genus "Pseudomonas".
"Pseudomonas sp. KUMS3" could be considered
as an opportunistic pathogen, which can survive on the
fish surface or in water or in the gut and may cause disease
when unfavorable conditions develop.
"P. aeruginosa" is an opportunistic human pathogen, most commonly affecting immunocompromised patients, such as those with cystic fibrosis or AIDS. Infection can affect many different parts of the body, but infections typically target the respiratory tract (e.g. patients with CF or those on mechanical ventilation), causing bacterial pneumonia. In a surveillance study between 1986 and 1989, P. aeruginosa was the third leading cause of all nosocomial infections, and specifically the number one leading cause of hospital-acquired pneumonia and third leading cause of hospital-acquired UTI. Treatment of such infections can be difficult due to multiple antibiotic resistance, and in the United States, there was an increase in MDRPA (Multidrug-resistant "Pseudomonas aeruginosa") resistant to ceftazidime, ciprofloxacin, and aminoglycosides, from 0.9% in 1994 to 5.6% in 2002.
"P. oryzihabitans" can also be a human pathogen, although infections are rare. It can cause peritonitis, endophthalmitis, septicemia and bacteremia. Similar symptoms although also very rare can be seen by infections of "P. luteola".
"P. plecoglossicida" is a fish pathogenic species, causing hemorrhagic ascites in the ayu ("Plecoglossus altivelis"). "P. anguilliseptica" is also a fish pathogen.
Due to their hemolytic activity, even non-pathogenic species of "Pseudomonas" can occasionally become a problem in clinical settings, where they have been known to infect blood transfusions.
Sixty percent of mothers of preterm infants are infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV). Infection is asymptomatic in most instances but 9% to 12% of postnatally infected low birth weight, preterm infants have severe, sepsis-like infection. CMV infection duration can be long and result in pneumonitis in association with fibrosis. CMV infection in infants has an unexpected effect on the white blood cells of the immune system causing them to prematurely age. This leads to a reduced immune response similar to that found in the elderly.
Human immunodeficiency virus type I (HIV) infection can occur during labor and delivery, in utero through mother-to-child transmission or postnatally by way of breastfeeding. Transmission can occur during pregnancy, delivery or breastfeeding. Most transmission occurs during delivery. In women with low detectable levels of the virus, the incidence of transmission is lower. Transmission risk can be reduced by:
- providing antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy and immediately after birth
- delivery by caesarean section
- not breastfeeding
- antiretroviral prophylaxis in infants born to mothers with HIV.
A low number of women whose HIV status are unknown until after the birth, do not benefit from interventions that could help lower the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission.
Pathogenic zygomycosis is caused by species in two orders: Mucorales or Entomophthorales, with the former causing far more disease than the latter. These diseases are known as "mucormycosis" and "entomophthoramycosis", respectively.
- Order Mucorales (mucormycosis)
- Family Mucoraceae
- "Absidia" ("Absidia corymbifera")
- "Apophysomyces" ("Apophysomyces elegans" and "Apophysomyces trapeziformis")
- "Mucor" ("Mucor indicus")
- "Rhizomucor" ("Rhizomucor pusillus")
- "Rhizopus" ("Rhizopus oryzae")
- Family Cunninghamellaceae
- "Cunninghamella" ("Cunninghamella bertholletiae")
- Family Thamnidiaceae
- "Cokeromyces" ("Cokeromyces recurvatus")
- Family Saksenaeaceae
- "Saksenaea" ("Saksenaea vasiformis")
- Family Syncephalastraceae
- "Syncephalastrum" ("Syncephalastrum racemosum")
- Order Entomophthorales (entomophthoramycosis)
- Family Basidiobolaceae
- "Basidiobolus" ("Basidiobolus ranarum")
- Family Ancylistaceae
- "Conidiobolus" ("Conidiobolus coronatus/Conidiobolus incongruus")
Systemic mycoses due to primary pathogens originate primarily in the lungs and may spread to many organ systems. Organisms that cause systemic mycoses are inherently virulent. In general primary pathogens that cause systemic mycoses are dimorphic.
People with recurrent boils are as well more likely to have a positive family history, take antibiotics, and to have been hospitalised, anemic, or diabetic; they are also more likely to have associated skin diseases and multiple lesions.