Antibodies never have to worry about unemployment, because they have a lifelong job in the fight against infections. Antibodies are also called immunoglobulins because they are part of your immune system and they are a type of protein that is...
Your body makes antibodies to help you fight off infections and disease. Antibodies are immunoglobulins, or globular proteins that are part of your immune system. As explained by Dr. Katzung in "Basic and Clinical Pharmacology," your physician may...
You must seek prompt medical attention if a potentially rabid animal bites you. Treat the wound by washing it with soap and water as soon as possible, but let it bleed; this can help your body eliminate any traces of the virus that may be...
About 50,000 to 100,000 people die from rabies every year, primarily in Asia and Africa, Dr. Vicente Corrales-Medina, infectious diseases fellow at Baylor College of Medicine, writes in "Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment." In the United...
Blood plasma contains antibodies, a type of protein that can fight a substance considered foreign to the host body. The body manufactures antibodies to correspond to naturally occurring antigens inherited through DNA. Foreign antigens...
The varicella-zoster virus is responsible for chicken pox and shingles outbreaks. Shingles, or herpes zoster, is an after-effect of chicken pox. The herpes zoster virus enters your body, usually when you are a child, causing you to experience the...
Allergies are one of the most common health problems in the United States. In fact, more than 50 percent of the United States population has issues with at least on allergen, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology....
Thrombocytopenia describes a condition in which the patient has abnormally low levels of platelets. Platelets are cells within the blood that help induce clotting in response to an injury. Patients can develop thrombocytopenia as a result of...
Atgam is the brand name of lymphocyte immune globulin, which is an immunosuppressive agent used in the treatment of rejection possibilities following the transplant of a kidney. This is called a renal transplant. The drug may be used both to...
Rabies is usually a fatal disease, even though a small number of people have survived it. Treatment includes preventing the infection from occurring once a person has been bitten by or exposed to an animal suspected of having rabies. According to...
Clostridium tetani is the bacteria that cause tetanus, or severe spasms of the jaw, neck, chest, abdomen and back. According to Medline Plus of the National Institutes of Health, Clostridium tetani spores live in the soil and are found around the...
Octagam is one of many brand names in the United States for the generically termed immune globulin. The Mayo Clinic states it is an immunizing agent that can boost the body's immune system to help it treat or prevent maladies such as chronic...
Corticosteroids, most often prednisone, are used to treat myositis, a chronic autoimmune inflammatory condition in which your muscles are weakened. Steroid drugs can reduce inflammation throughout your body and slow down your immune system's...
Jaundice is a term given when the skin and whites of the eyes develop a yellowish tint due to a buildup of biliruben in the blood. For a newborn baby, the condition is common. During gestation, the mother's liver will filter biliruben out of the...
The book, "Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine" says that, cytomegalovirus can cause: mononucleosis; pneumonia in approximately 20 percent of bone marrow transplant patients; and inflammation of the retina, or retinitis In HIV infected...
Due to the dangers to both mother and baby of chickenpox infection during pregnancy, the Mayo Clinic recommends preventative chickenpox vaccination for all women of childbearing age who have not had chickenpox or received a vaccination before....
When a person shows signs or symptoms of rabies, it is almost certain the person will die because infection has already taken hold, MayoClinic.com points out. Providing a vaccine to anyone who may have been exposed to rabies is a priority. Prompt...
Rabies is a zoonotic disease, which means that it is passed from an animal to a human. The disease is caused by the rabies virus Rhabdoviridae lyssavirus. In the U.S. several different strains of this virus that can be found in different animals....
Rabies causes certain death in humans unless they receive medical treatment to decrease the chance of infection. People are exposed to rabies through the saliva of a rabid animal, usually raccoons, foxes, skunks, bats or other wild animals,...
Rabies is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the brain, and in the vast majority of cases, death. Most cases of rabies infection occur through the bite of an infected animal, when the virus enters the body in the animal’s saliva....
Once a common childhood disease, chicken pox has been largely eradicated due to chickenpox vaccine. However, some children and even adults may still catch the disease. The varicella zoster virus causes chickenpox and the condition remains highly...
The source of botulism is Clostridium botulinum, an organism found in soil and untreated water that produces a strong neurotoxin, or nerve poison. An average of 145 cases of botulism are reported each year in the United States, notes the Centers...
Purpura is generally a condition characterized by the occurrence of purple spots and blemishes that appear on the skin, organs and mucous membranes. There are two common variations of purpura: idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, or ITP, and...
Hepatitis A (HAV) is a virus that infects the liver. Hepatitis literally means "liver inflammation" and is prevalent around the world, especially in Mexico, Central and South America, Greenland, Africa, the Middle East, and the entire Asian...
Contagious diseases quickly spread between individuals and can easily devastate an entire population. Sometimes, respiratory droplets are to blame for passing on the disease. For example, a person can sneeze, cough, laugh or talk and spray...
The hepatitis B virus causes the liver to become inflamed. There are two forms of hepatitis B--acute and chronic. In the acute form, liver inflammation resolves in six months or less. The chronic form is when the inflammation persists for longer...
Botulism is a serious and potentially fatal illness caused by Clostridium botulinum. Food-borne botulism, caused by eating contaminated food, produces gastrointestinal symptoms followed by paralysis. Wound botulism, often the result of injecting...
The telltale sign of newborn jaundice is a yellowish tint to your baby's skin and eyes. This scary sight occurs when there's too much bilirubin in the baby's system. Bilirubin is the product of red blood cells that break down. It should pass...
