A disease is defined as an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, usually indicated by specific symptoms and signs. Infectious diseases, in particular, are caused by external factors such as viruses, bacteria, and other harmful pathogens. It may be as simple as the coughing of co-worker or carelessness in the hospital that can cause you to contract an infectious disease. These diseases range from the common cold to deadly sexually transmitted diseases.

Infectious diseases may seem like an omnipresent part of human life, but there are definitely steps that you can take to avoid contracting such infectious diseases. Being careful and conscious of your safety, along with knowing your surrounding environment can help you avoid contract an infectious disease. Your skin is the main defensive mechanism against infectious diseases, but some diseases will find other ways to enter your body.

The rest of this article will give you tips on how to avoid contracting infectious diseases. Follow these tips to change your behavior and avoid the spread and contraction of these diseases.

1. Wash your hands

To best way to avoid infectious disease is by constantly washing your hands. Harmful microbes can live on any surface up to several months. Think about how many different things you hands touch in the course of a day. If your eye suddenly itches, and you decide to scratch it, there is little difference between rubbing your cornea all over your germ-infested keyboard. Washing your hands should take no less than 20 seconds and should be followed with hand-drying. As a timer, sing “Happy Birthday” in your brain. When you finish the song, it’s safe to stop!

2. Avoid sharing hygienic items

For personal hygienic items such as toothbrushes, towels, razors, or handkerchiefs, it is smarter to avoid sharing with others. Harmful pathogens that cause disease can be living all over these items. Do whatever you can to keep these items to yourself, and avoid using others’ items as well.

3. Get vaccinated

Your immune system is designed to be more resistant to previous infections. If you do not feel like contracting a disease just to teach your immune system new tricks, getting a vaccination from your doctor can do it for you. Many vaccines will implant a mock microbe that teaches your immune system to enhance its defense against infectious diseases such as the flu.

4. Practice safe sex

Use condoms when having sex to avoid contracting and spreading sexually-transmitted diseases. It is just that simple. A sexually-transmitted disease is often permanent and life-changing. Avoid being careless and you can avoid contracting these diseases!

5. Do not pick your nose, eyes, ears, or mouth

Do not give the disease an open invitation to the most susceptible areas on your body! Microbes prefer the warmness and mucous of these body parts. Avoiding infectious disease includes using tissues and not dirty fingers to clean your sinuses!

The Atlanta-based federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New York City Department of Health are recommending several steps to prevent the spread of the virus.

• If you have flu symptoms, stay home from work or school to avoid spreading the disease. Do not return until two days after your symptoms are gone.
• Cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze, and wash your hands frequently.
• Go to the hospital if you have severe symptoms such as difficulty breathing, but if your symptoms are mild stay home to avoid spreading the virus to others at the hospital.
• Masks may be recommended for health care workers, family members and others who come in close contact with swine flu patients, but there is no need for the general public to wear masks.
• It is safe to eat properly handled pork. Cook it to at least 160 degrees.

1. Wash your hands frequently. Did you know that microbes can live on inert surfaces anywhere from a few minutes to several months? Imagine these disease-causing microbes living on your computer keyboard, your light-switch, or even on the pedestrian-crossing button next to the crosswalk!Surprisingly, most people don’t know the best way to effectively wash their hands. The CDC recommends washing thoroughly and vigorously with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, followed by hand-drying with a paper towel. In the absence of running water, an alcohol-based hand gel or wipe will suffice, although nothing beats good ol’ soap and water. This takes about as long as it does to sing “Happy Birthday”, so some hospitals recommend washing your hands for the duration of this simple tune!
2. Don’t share personal items. Toothbrushes, towels, razors, handkerchiefs, and nail clippers can all be sources of infectious agents (bacteria, viruses, and fungi). In kindergarten, you were taught to share your toys, but keep your hands to yourself. Now try to remember to keep personal items to yourself as well!
3. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. In a similar vein, good personal hygiene includes not only personal cleanliness, but also the age-old practice of covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze. Why is this important if you aren’t sick? For most infections, the disease-causing microbe has already started growing and dividing long before any symptoms begin to show. Coughing or sneezing can spread these germs through microscopic droplets in the air. The current recommendation is to cover your mouth with your arm, sleeve, or crook of the elbow, rather than using your hands.
4. Get vaccinated. Your immune system is designed to have a “memory” of previous infections. When your body encounters a microbe that has previously caused an infection, it enhances its production of white blood cells and antibodies to prevent infection a second time. However, by getting vaccinated, you “trick” your body into thinking that it has been infected by a particular microbe, hence enhancing its own defenses against subsequent infection.
5. Use safe cooking practices. Food-borne illnesses frequently arise from poor food preparation and dining habits. Microbes thrive on virtually all food items, and more so on foods left at room temperature. Refrigeration slows or stops the growth of most microbes. Promptly refrigerate foods within 2 hours of preparation. Use separate cutting boards for raw meats and vegetables, keep clean countertops, and wash all fruits and vegetables well prior to eating.
6. Be a smart traveler. Infectious diseases can easily be picked up while traveling, particularly when traveling to underdeveloped countries. If your travel destination is one where water is questionable, make sure to use a safe water source such as bottled water for drinking and brushing your teeth. Eat foods that have been cooked, and avoid raw vegetables and fruits. Finally, be sure to update all immunizations that are advised or required for your travel destination.
7. Practice safe sex. Sexually-transmitted diseases are probably the most easily preventable infectious disease. By being smart about safe sex (using condoms), transfer of infectious bacteria or viruses from one person to another can be prevented.
8. Don’t pick your nose (or your mouth or eyes either). Not only is it a social taboo, but it also leads to the spread of a number of infections. Look around, and you’ll notice how many people have their hands next to their faces. Many microbes prefer the warm, moist environment inside your nose, as well as other mucous-covered surfaces such as your eyes and mouth. Infections can be easily prevented by avoiding touching of these areas.
9. Exercise caution with animals. Infections that can spread from animals to people are called “zoonotic diseases” and are more common than most people realize. If you have pets, make sure they get regular check-ups and that their vaccinations are up-to-date. Clean litter boxes frequently (unless you’re pregnant—stay away!), and keep small children away from animal feces. Different types of wild animals can carry diseases such as rabies or bird flu or fleas and ticks that spread plague and Lyme disease. Make the area around your home unfriendly to rodents and other mammals by eliminating areas where they could hide or build nests, using rodent-proof trash cans that contain food waste, and sealing up holes that offer easy and attractive access to animals. And teach small children in your household to be cautious when encountering wild animals.
10. Watch the news. A good understanding of current events can help you to make wise decisions about traveling or other recreational activities. For example, a bird flu outbreak in Asia may make you think twice about a trip you were planning. Recent reports of West Nile Virus spread by mosquitoes? You may want to bring some insect repellent on your camping trip after all! Salmonella in tomatoes? Don’t eat tomatoes.

A variety of pathogens can be responsible for infectious disease, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans, and prions. Within these large categories of infectious organisms, there are numerous modes of transmission and a colorful assortment of symptoms, although surprisingly few organisms cause infectious disease, when one considers the diversity of viral, bacterial, fungal, and protozoan life. In order to treat an infectious disease, doctors must be able to knock out the source of the infection and repair the damage it has done to the body. Many infectious diseases make the body vulnerable to secondary infections, in which other organisms move in to take advantage of a weakened immune system, and this can be very problematic.

The study of infectious disease is known as epidemiology. Epidemiologists work to determine the source of an infectious disease so that they can develop new treatment approaches. They also identify emerging outbreaks, which may develop into epidemics or pandemics, and areas where a disease is endemic, meaning that it occurs regularly. Malaria, for example, is endemic to some regions of Africa and Southeast Asia.

There are a variety of techniques which can be used to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Basic hygiene eliminates many organisms, as long as people wash their hands, use clean drinking water, and have access to clean medical facilities. Reduction of contact with vectors of zoonotic transmission such as insects and rodents can also reduce the incidence, as can education in communities where a particular infectious disease is endemic.

Antivirals, antibacterials, and antifungals are all used in the fight against infectious disease, sometimes prophylactically to prevent infection in endemic areas. Doctors also use a variety of medical tests and screening tools to identify patients and at-risk populations, and additional medical treatments such surgery and minor procedures are also used in the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases.

Worldwide, infectious disease is a common killer, especially in developing nations. Respiratory infections are the deadliest infectious diseases, followed by HIV/AIDS, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis, and malaria. Many infectious diseases are fully preventable with minimal effort, making the high loss of life to things like diarrheal diseases in some regions of the world especially unfortunate.

It’s enough to set Paul Offit to ranting, which he did this week at a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Offit, a physician who heads the infectious disease division at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has devoted a career to fighting illness. In his job, vaccines are often the most reliable weapon available, and cost-effective to boot. And although it’s astonishingly more dangerous to contract a disease than it is to get vaccinated for it, that message seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way.

Offit traces this detour back to 1982, when DPT — the shot that prevents diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis – was (wrongly) linked to brain damage. “Three people believed their kids were harmed by the vaccine,” he says.

Offit has compassion for families who have a child who has suffered, whatever the cause may be, known or unknown. But since 1982, it’s been one accusation after another against vaccines. People tried to link the HIB vaccine to diabetes (no evidence), the hepatitis B vaccine to multiple sclerosis (all but one study found no link), and other vaccines to SIDS or autism. Recently, the HPV vaccine — which prevents cervical cancer – got linked to heart attacks and strokes (no proof).

And now the seasonal flu vaccine and H1N1 flu vaccine are being skipped by millions of people who somehow distrust the science that went into making them, even though the illnesses they cause can be fatal.

But hey, it’s a free country. Paul Offit just throws up his hands: “Is it your right to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection? The answer is ‘yes,’” he says.

Mary Ann Jackson, a physician who heads the infectious disease section at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo., investigates vaccination rates among specific groups. She says that the new generation of people dodging vaccines includes many white, college-educated women, often young mothers who get their information from the Internet. The odd part, Jackson says, is that these same women are also health-conscious, seat-belt-buckling folks. “They are trying to choose what’s best for their children. They want it to be their own decision,” she says.

Unfortunately, avoiding vaccination has consequences beyond one household. It turns people into pathogen carriers and provides viruses with convenient hiding places. “Herd immunity is eroding to the point that we’re now seeing outbreaks of preventable diseases,” says Offit. In 2004, for example, the United States experienced its worst outbreak of whooping cough (pertussis) in years. Mumps has also cropped up. Daycares have become high-risk areas because they’ve got a population of children who are relatively under-vaccinated, he says. “Doctors are worried about their waiting rooms being dangerous places.”

William Schaffner, a physician who chairs the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University, cited a recent round of focus groups held to discuss vaccines. Some people voiced doubts about vaccine safety. But Schaffner was impressed by one group of participants who were adamantly in favor of vaccination: immigrants from developing countries. “They knew about these diseases,” he says.

Meanwhile, infectious disease experts have little use for “natural exposure” adherents, which include parents who have been known to host chickenpox parties or who otherwise intentionally expose their children to a disease rather than get the kids vaccinated. Chickenpox is far from harmless. While most cases in young children are indeed benign, older children and adults can get terrible illnesses. And getting chickenpox as a child puts a person at risk of getting shingles when older, whereas there is no evidence that a chickenpox vaccination does.

It’s easy to see why these scientists get frustrated. But sometimes not even a barrage of facts helps their cause. Ronald Reagan famously said, “Facts are stupid things.” Maybe so, maybe no.

For example, the vaccine for H1N1 flu is now being distributed nationwide. But among pregnant women, who can go to the front of that line, three-fourths aren’t getting vaccinated, even though H1N1 is particularly lethal for them and — as if that weren’t enough — it poses risks to theirs fetuses. Facts are scary things.

Health-care workers, another bunch who should know better, also don’t necessarily get vaccinated. Jackson was shocked to find flu vaccination rates of only 50 percent among hospital workers she studied.

So despite vaccines’ overwhelming safety profile when compared to the risks run by exposure to the diseases they prevent, and despite the exhortations of the CDC and World Health Organization, some people just gravitate toward other sources of information they deem more reliable.

“There’s a post-modernist notion that all levels of belief are acceptable,” Offit says.

The vaccine disconnect brings to mind a bumper sticker seen a few years ago, when some school boards and even the state of Kansas were openly advocating the teaching of an alternative explanation to counter Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The bumper sticker read: “What’s next — gravity?”