what is a pathogen?
A pathogen is an agent that is capable of causing infection or disease, especially a living microorganism, bacterium, fungus or virus. Poisons like arsenic would be excluded. It causes disease in its host , human, plant, and others. Pathogens include bacteria, viruses, fungi and so on.
bacteria
The word bacteria is the plural to bacterium. Bacteria are tiny living organisms which scientifically is called micro-organisms. Bacteria comes in 3 main shapes: Spherical shaped, Rod shaped, and spiral shaped. They do not belong to animal or plant groups, they however own a group of their own. They are organisms that normally exist in their millions together. Planet Earth is estimated to hold at least 5 nonillion bacteria!!
5 nonillion: 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (50 x 50 '30 times.)
Like virus bacteria can cause a lot of illnesses. They can enter the human body in different ways, such as through the mouth or through cuts in the skin. If they multiply sufficiently they can cause an infection! The infection can be caused by the bacteria itself or by toxins that it produced, which is more dangerous. Bacteria an cause illness in numerous ways: some bacteria destroys the tissue directly, some grow and multiply quickly, this is made possible when the bacterium divides into two by halving the DNA of the cell. Some produce nasty things inside your body like toxins or poisons that kill off your cells. When bacteria is alive, it produces poisons called exotoxins and when it die it leaves toxins called endotoxins. Both of which can be harmful to your body. Most bacterial infections can be treated successfully with antibiotics but some bacteria are strong therefore antibiotics does not work on them.
5 nonillion: 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (50 x 50 '30 times.)
Like virus bacteria can cause a lot of illnesses. They can enter the human body in different ways, such as through the mouth or through cuts in the skin. If they multiply sufficiently they can cause an infection! The infection can be caused by the bacteria itself or by toxins that it produced, which is more dangerous. Bacteria an cause illness in numerous ways: some bacteria destroys the tissue directly, some grow and multiply quickly, this is made possible when the bacterium divides into two by halving the DNA of the cell. Some produce nasty things inside your body like toxins or poisons that kill off your cells. When bacteria is alive, it produces poisons called exotoxins and when it die it leaves toxins called endotoxins. Both of which can be harmful to your body. Most bacterial infections can be treated successfully with antibiotics but some bacteria are strong therefore antibiotics does not work on them.
virus
A virus is a micro-organism that can copy itself only in the inside of the cells of a host organism. They are very small and can be seen under a microscope. Viruses infect a number of living organisms including plants, animals and humans. Viruses are non cellular infectious agents which has a single type of acid either RNA or DNA and is coated with protein. They cause a wide variety of diseases in living organisms. They do not have their own metabolism so they must reproduce only within living host cells. They first attach themselves to the living host cells, they then penetrate or break their way through the cell wall. The virus releases it's nucleic acid from the protein coat. The then produce more viral nucleic acid and proteins. They then mature and reassemble themselves before then being released from the host cell this results in cell and tissue damage. In this case antibiotics do not cure viruses. You can take immunisations to train your body to be ready for the virus when it comes so it can easily fight off the virus.
Fungi
Fungi has its own kingdom. Fungus can live on your body, in some cases they can release toxins as to when your own inflammatory processes in response to their presence will result in a disease. Examples of this can be athletes foot or ringworm. Their fibres grow in the upper layer of the skin which causes inflammation and damage. There are different types of infections the first being superficial infection which is caused when fungi attack the skin, nails and more. The second type is Systematic infections, which are diseases that occur deep within the tissues, in some cases this can be fatal as it may play with the nervous system or vital organs. The third is intermediate infection is when it the infection will occur under the skin but stay localised.
Fungal infection can be cured. There are different types of medications you can take to help the infection like cream or pills. Fungal infections can be helped by wearing clean dry cotton clothing and making sure you do not share items with other people that can be infected. In some serious cases of being infected doctors can prescribe medications administered through IV.
Fungal infection can be cured. There are different types of medications you can take to help the infection like cream or pills. Fungal infections can be helped by wearing clean dry cotton clothing and making sure you do not share items with other people that can be infected. In some serious cases of being infected doctors can prescribe medications administered through IV.
prOtist
Many protist can cause serious illness and disease. Protists are commonly defined as Eukaryotic microorganisms they can be both unicellular or multicellular. There are different diseases one of them is malaria. Malaria is caused by the protist plasmodium, which are sporozoans(a protozoan of the phylum sporozoan) and are spread from person to person through mosquitoes. Another example is Toxoplasmosis which is caused by Toxoplasma gondii, and the disease is transmitted from contaminated animal meat or contaminated faeces( waste matter remaining after the animal has digested food) of infected animals. There several ways through which protists can be treated. This will depend on the particular type of protist but the common treatments are using antivirals and antibiotics.
worms
Some worms that can cause disease can be seen by the naked eye or under a microscope. Parasitic worms are organism that live inside their hosts whether it is inside an animal or plant. Worms can live on or in humans where they can cause a variety of diseases, most of these can be found in soil and can enter the human body when someone picks it up and transfers it to their mouth. It can cause serious problems where the worm eggs actually move through the body and enter muscle tissues. There are different worm diseases like whipworm disease and hookworm disease. They have different effects on the body, Ascaris, is a type of round worm that gets into the lungs and causes asthma while Endolimax nana eats the calcium from the bones and thereby causes arthritis. Symptoms include stomach pain, nausea, vomiting fatigue and a lot more. If you have a worm disease the doctor would first take a stool test to find the type of worm present in the body, then he will prescribe a vermicides which is a drug that roots out the worms from the body by killing or stunning them.