Infectious Disease Terms

A drug used to treat infections caused by bacteria and parasites.

Because HIV can develop resistance to a single drug relatively quickly, antiretroviral therapy nearly always combines medications from more than one class.

Describes a drug or effect that works against tuberculosis (a contagious bacterial infection that usually affects the lungs).

Narrow by design: a drug that halts one virus usually does nothing whatsoever against an unrelated one.

A drug used with another drug, ritonavir, to treat patients who are infected with HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) and have been treated with other anti-HIV drugs.

A missing letter rather than a different symptom: the same joint pain, spelled the way it is often typed and rarely corrected.

Aspergillosis is a fungal infection caused by Aspergillus mold that most often affects the lungs, particularly in people with a weakened immune system.

An aggressive (fast-growing) type of T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma caused by the human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1).

The first drug ever licensed against HIV, still in use but now only as one part of a combination.

The cell that becomes an antibody factory, and the reason a second meeting with the same germ goes so much better than the first.

Vastly more of them live on a person harmlessly than will ever cause illness, which is why killing them indiscriminately has costs.

A toxic substance, made by bacteria, that can be modified to kill specific tumor cells without harming normal cells.

A type of bacterium often found in the vagina.

Treatment to boost or restore the ability of the immune system to fight cancer, infections, and other diseases.

Treatment to boost or restore the ability of the immune system to fight cancer, infections, and other diseases.

Treatment to boost or restore the ability of the immune system to fight cancer, infections, and other diseases.

An everyday phrase covering two different medical problems, which is why careful writing has retired it in favor of precise terms.

A toxin made by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.

A bowel movement is the elimination of solid waste from the digestive tract, and its frequency, consistency, and color vary widely among healthy people.

A substance that is being studied in the treatment of infections caused by herpesvirus, including herpes-zoster (shingles).