Introduction Bacteria can cause skin and soft tissue lesions through two mechanisms: skin and soft tissues can be the primary entry site for a bacterial infection or the lesions in skin and soft tissues could be part of a systemic…
Pox Family of Viruses The poxvirus family Poxviridae consists of a group of large, enveloped, double-stranded DNA viruses capable of infecting vertebrates and invertebrates. Poxviruses are the largest known animal viruses, and the characteristic viral inclusions caused by infection with…
This chapter is directed to pathologists who are confronted by certain viral infections of the central nervous system (CNS) that may have systemic involvement. The arboviral encephalitides and CNS infections caused by DNA viruses have been covered in other chapters.…
The findings and conclusions in this work are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Introduction Overview of Viral Encephalitis Infections of the central nervous system (CNS)…
Influenza Viruses Influenza A and B viruses are antigenically, ecologically, and epidemiologically distinct members of the family Orthomyxoviridae that have segmented, negative-sense RNA genomes and are surrounded by a lipid envelope. Globally, both virus groups are associated with an enormous…
Introduction Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has become, just since the 1980s, one of the priority infections in global health. HIV is unique among infectious diseases in that the clinical and pathologic manifestations of HIV itself are not the major…
Introduction The Papillomaviridae, Parvoviridae, and Polyomaviridae are three families of small, nonenveloped, DNA viruses. Despite their structural and taxonomic similarities, these viruses infect different tissue types and cause very different human diseases. This chapter examines the viruses in each family…
The hepatitis viruses are grouped because of their tendency to preferentially infect hepatocytes. They are not all taxonomically related, however, and descend from a number of different virus families. Each has a distinct structure, type of genome, mode of transmission,…
Herpesviridae are characterized by an ability to establish latency within specific tissues and reactivate at a later time. The latent viral genetic material may exist extrachromosomally or it may become integrated into the host cell DNA. Eight herpes viruses are…
Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases: An Integrated Approach The diagnosis of infectious diseases ranges from straightforward clinical diagnoses to those that are possible only with the use of advanced molecular methods. Between these two extremes are the many infectious diseases for…