Infektös

Infektös is an adjective used in medical and public health contexts to describe agents, diseases, or conditions that are capable of transmitting infection from an infected host to another person or host. The term emphasizes the potential for spread rather than the severity of illness and is used in several European language traditions to distinguish infectious conditions from noninfectious ones such as toxins or injuries.

Infectious agents include viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites. Transmission occurs through various routes: direct contact (such as touching or sexual contact), indirect contact via fomites, droplets from coughing or sneezing, airborne spread over distances, vector transmission by insects or other animals, and ingestion of contaminated food or water. The likelihood of transmission depends on properties of the pathogen, the reservoir, the environment, and host factors. The basic reproduction number, R0, is a common measure used to estimate the average number of secondary cases produced by one infectious case in a susceptible population.

Public health responses aim to reduce infectiousness and transmission through vaccination, appropriate antimicrobial or antiviral treatment, quarantine or isolation of cases, contact tracing, hand hygiene, surface disinfection, ventilation improvements, and safe food handling. Some infections are highly contagious (for example measles or varicella), while others are infectious without being readily contagious because transmission requires specific environmental conditions or non-human reservoirs.

In sum, infektös describes the capacity of agents or diseases to spread between hosts, a central concern in epidemiology and infection control.