Infectious Diseases: Control and Prevention

Infection Control Treatment & Diagnosis

Treatment of viral infections such as HIV involves patient care and moral support including antiretroviral therapy. Bacterial infections can be treated by administering antibiotics to the patients. Yeast infections can be primarily treated by sterilisation methods. Parasitic infections can be treated by antiparasitic drugs. Diseases such as cancer can be treated by chemotherapy. Recent techniques have proved that there is no disease that cannot be treated. Medical diagnosis is the process of determining which disease or condition explains a person's symptoms and signs. Laboratory tests may identify organisms directly (e.g., visually, using a microscope growing the organism in culture) or indirectly (e.g., identifying antibodies to the organism). General types of tests include microscopy, culture and immunologic tests (agglutination tests such as latex agglutination, enzyme immunoassays, western blot, precipitation tests and complement fixation tests) and nucleic acid/ non nucleic acid based identification methods. Sub types of diagnoses include clinical, laboratory, radiology, principal and admitting diagnosis. Advanced methods have been implemented to diagnose the infection in any part of the body. Examples include biomarkers/ elisa test/ chest x ray/ skin biopsy/ tympanometry and tympanocentesis.