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Pathogen And Biological Agent That Causes Disease

Decent Essays

“There is no such thing as a perfect pathogen.” Discuss

A pathogen can be defined as a microorganism or a biological agent that causes disease. Pathogen’s sole aim is to replicate and produce progeny to pass its genes on to; therefore the notion of a perfect pathogen would be an organism that has the capacity to carry out this task. The major classes of infectious agents are bacteria, virus, protozoa, fungi and even prions (Albert B, 2002) . In order to be considered perfect a pathogen would have to possess many characteristic such as being highly contagious, rapidly shed, evoking limited immunity, constantly evolving and only moderately virulent, allowing most of the infect to recover, which means a larger pool of susceptible host (J.Hall, 2012). The host immune system protects us from most infection. However pathogens must overcome this in order to survive, and they have developed many adaptations to achieve this.
The first ordeal that a pathogen must overcome biochemical and physical barriers that operates at the body surface such as the skin in order to gain entry. The skin is normally impermeable to majority of the pathogen and the mucosal layer also provides a barrier (Richard V Goering, 2008). Virus and bacteria can break through the first line defence in many ways such as through openings of the ears, mouth or nose. Wounds, abrasion are also sites of entry as they are an opening in the barrier many virulent pathogens utilise this including streptococci, Leptospira

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