Infectious disease

Subclinical versus clinical (latent versus apparent)[edit]
Symptomatic infections are apparent and clinical, whereas an infection that is active but does not produce noticeable symptoms may be called inapparent, silent, subclinical, or occult. An infection that is inactive or dormant is called a latent infection.^[51] An example of a latent bacterial infection is latent tuberculosis. Some viral infections can also be latent, examples of latent viral infections are any of those from the Herpesviridae family.^[52]
The word infection can denote any presence of a particular pathogen at all (no matter how little) but also is often used in a sense implying a clinically apparent infection (in other words, a case of infectious disease). This fact occasionally creates some ambiguity or prompts some usage discussion; to get around this it is common for health professionals to speak of colonization (rather than infection) when they mean that some of the pathogens are present but that no clinically apparent infection (no disease) is present.^[53]
Course of infection[edit]
Different terms are used to describe how and where infections present over time. In an acute infection, symptoms develop rapidly; its course can either be rapid or protracted. In chronic infection, symptoms usually develop gradually over weeks or months and are slow to resolve.^[54] In subacute infections, symptoms take longer to develop than in acute infections but arise more quickly than those of chronic infections. A focal infection is an initial site of infection from which organisms travel via the bloodstream to another area of the body.^[55]
Primary versus opportunistic[edit]
See also: Coinfection
Among the many varieties of microorganisms, relatively few cause disease in otherwise healthy individuals.^[56] Infectious disease results from the interplay between those few pathogens and the defenses of the hosts they infect. The appearance and severity of disease resulting from any pathogen depend upon the ability of that pathogen to damage the host as well as the ability of the host to resist the pathogen. However, a host's immune system can also cause damage to the host itself in an attempt to control the infection. Clinicians, therefore, classify infectious microorganisms or microbes according to the status of host defenses – either as primary pathogens or as opportunistic pathogens.^[57]