Transmission (medicine) - Transmission, Symptoms and Survival

Transmission, Symptoms and Survival

Pathogens must have a way to be transmitted from one host to another to ensure their species' survival. Infectious agents are generally specialized for a particular method of transmission. Taking an example from the respiratory route, from an evolutionary perspective a virus or bacteria that causes its host to develop coughing and sneezing symptoms has a great survival advantage – it is much more likely to be ejected from one host and carried to another. This is also the reason that many microorganisms cause diarrhea.

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