Question

What are carriers and vectors?

Answer 1

Hint: Disease is defined as any harmful deviation from an organism's normal structural or functional state, which is typically accompanied by specific signs and symptoms and differs in nature from physical injury. A diseased organism frequently exhibits signs or symptoms of its abnormal state. Thus, understanding an organism's normal state is required to recognize disease symptoms.

Complete answer:
Understanding how infectious pathogens spread is critical for infectious disease prevention. Many pathogens require a living host to survive, whereas others may be able to survive in a dormant state without one. However, after infecting one host, all pathogens must have a mechanism for transferring from one host to another, or they will perish when their host dies.

Carrier: A carrier is a person who carries and is capable of passing on a disease-causing genetic mutation and may or may not exhibit disease symptoms. Carriers are linked to diseases that are inherited as recessive traits. An individual must have inherited mutated alleles from both parents to have the disease. A person with one normal allele and one mutated allele does not have the disease. Two carriers may produce children with the disease.

Vectors: A disease vector is defined in epidemiology as an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism; vectors are organisms such as intermediate parasites or microbes. Ronald Ross discovered the malaria pathogen while dissecting a mosquito in 1897, making him the first major discovery of a disease vector.

Note: Asymptomatic carriers frequently transmit pathogens such as hepatitis B virus, herpes simplex virus, and HIV. Mosquitoes, flies, sand flies, lice, fleas, ticks, and mites are among the most common pathogen vectors, transmitting a wide range of pathogens. Many of these vectors are hematophagous, meaning they consume blood at some or all stages of their life. When the insects feed on blood, the pathogen enters the host's bloodstream. This can happen in a variety of ways.