Difference Between Infection and Disease
Infection and disease are two words that are often confused as one and the same. In fact these two medical terms are different in their meaning. The infection is understood in the sense of contamination. It is said contamination of the air or water with harmful organisms cause the infection. The infection affects a person with the disease.
On the other hand the disease is the end result of an infection. This is the main difference between infection and disease. In short we can say that the infection causes the disease. A person gets a disease if he or she is infected. For example a person gets the disease called malaria if it is an infection caused by the body as a piece of the female Anopheles mosquito.
The bite of the mosquito contaminates or infects a person’s body with harmful organisms. Therefore the person develops a headache, fever that is accompanied by the heavy shuddering and other symptoms of malaria.
On the other hand, the infection can also be caused by the disease as in cases of the disease tuberculosis or TB. Patients affected by TB infect people around him with detrimental organisms arising out of his breath or cough. It is primarily the reason why doctors ask patients affected by infectious diseases to be away from people in their homes. People do this to protect people in the house from catching the infection produced by the disease.
There are medications for diseases, but there is no medicine to keep infections at bay. Infections can only be prevented, but can not be cured. They can be cured only after they have caused disease. Only the preventive measures are suggested to keep infections at bay. These are the differences between infection and disease.