Infectious and Rare Diseases

Microbial Pathogenesis and Virulence

Microbial pathogenesis is the study of the molecular mechanisms used by microorganisms to cause disease in humans and animals. By understanding how pathogens cause disease helps in the development of new therapeutic approaches. Virulence is the measure of the pathogenicity of an organism. The degree of virulence is related directly to the ability of the organism to cause infection despite host resistance mechanisms, it is affected by numerous variables such as the number of infecting bacteria, route of entry into the body, specific and nonspecific host defence mechanisms and virulence factors of the bacterium.