Infectious Disease Terms

A substance that is made naturally by some bacteria, fungi, and other organisms, and can also be made in the laboratory.

A drug used in the treatment of infections caused by viruses.

A chemical meant for surfaces and equipment, strong enough to kill most germs but too harsh for living skin.

One of the few antibiotics that reaches organisms living inside human cells, which is why tick-borne and atypical infections come back to it.

The failure of cancer cells, viruses, or bacteria to respond to a drug used to kill or weaken them.

One of the most widespread viruses in existence, harmless in most people and yet tied to a surprising list of diseases.

Echinacea is an herbal supplement derived from purple coneflower, popularly used in an effort to prevent or shorten the common cold.

A virus that has an outer wrapping or envelope.

Its weapons cut both ways: the granule proteins that damage parasites also injure airway and skin tissue in allergic disease.

An extract is a concentrated preparation drawn from a plant, animal, or microorganism, used either as a medication itself or as an ingredient within one.

An antibiotic/antifungal drug used to treat infection.

Fluoroquinolones are broad spectrum antibiotics that stop bacteria from replicating their DNA, used against a range of respiratory and urinary infections.

A drug used to treat infections with herpesviruses in people whose immune systems are weakened by AIDS.

A drug used to treat infections with herpesviruses in people whose immune systems are weakened by AIDS.

Closer relatives of animals than of plants, and wrapped in a cell wall humans have no equivalent of, which is what antifungal drugs exploit.

An inherited disorder in which there is a lower-than-normal number of neutrophils (a type of white blood cell that is important in fighting infections).

A raised growth on the surface of the genitals caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection.

A bacterium, virus, or other microorganism that can cause infection and disease.

A laboratory condition rather than a hospital one: free not merely of germs that cause disease but of every detectable microbe.

Any substance or process that kills germs (bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms that can cause infection and disease).