Answers 2024/2025
Infection - ANSWERSWhen microorganisms capable of producing disease invade the body
Healthcare-Related Infection - ANSWERSAn infection acquired as a result of healthcare
- cost to the healthcare system
- leading cause of death
- preventable with use of aseptic principles or techniques
Exogenous Healthcare-Related Infection - ANSWERSPathogen is acquired from the healthcare
environment.
Endogenous healthcare related infection - ANSWERSThe pathogen arises from the patient's normal flora.
When some form of treatment, for example chemotherapy or antibiotics, causes the normally harmless
microbe to multiply and cause infection.
The spread of infection: six links - ANSWERS1. Infectious agents
2. Reservoir
3. Portal of exit
4. Mode of transmission
5. Portal of entry
6. Susceptible host
Flora: transient flora - ANSWERSNormal microbes that a person picks up by coming into contact with
objects
Flora: resident flora - ANSWERSLive deep in skin layers, where they live and multiply harmlessly
, Pathogen - ANSWERSMicro organisms capable of causing disease. The largest groups of pathogenic
microorganisms are bacteria, viruses, and fungi which include yeast and molds.
Reservoir host - ANSWERSSource of infection, a place where pathogens survive and multiply
Spread of infection: infectious agent - ANSWERSPathogens, normal flora that become pathogenic
Spread of infection: reservoir - ANSWERSWhere pathogens live and multiply. Maybe living such as
humans, animals, or insects. And maybe non-living such as food, floors, equipment, contaminated water.
Spread of infection: portal of exit - ANSWERSVia body fluids, coughing, sneezing, diarrhea, sleeping
wounds, tubes, or IV lines
- most frequent is through body fluids
Spread of infection: mode of transmission - ANSWERSContact either direct or indirect, droplet, and
airborne
Direct contact - ANSWERSOccurs between two people and usually involves touching, kissing, or sexual
intercourse
Indirect contact - ANSWERSInvolves contact with a fomite, a contaminated object that transfers a
pathogen
Droplet transmission - ANSWERSInfection is passed when the pathogen travels in water droplets
expelled as an infected person exhales, coughs, sneezes, or talks
Airborne transmission - ANSWERSPathogens can travel through heating and air-conditioning systems to
infect large numbers of people
Spread of infection: portal of entry - ANSWERSPathogens can enter the body through various places.
Eyes, nares, mouth, vagina, cuts, scrapes, wounds, surgical sites, IV or drainage tube sites, bite from a
vector.