[Human health risks with regard to persistent infections and permanent excretors]

Specifically pathogenous germs affect our environment in many different ways, e.g. through food, waste, sewage or living vectors like birds, arthropodes and other pests. Domestic animals and pets as well as human beings are the most dangerous carriers of infectious agents and permanent excretors. Persistent infections form the infectiological basis in this context. They establish the inexhaustible reservoir of the contamination of the environment with epidemic pathogens, thus endangering the health of human beings. By means of molecularbiological research on the functional bases of germ persistence we are able to classify 3 different forms of persistent infections: 1. latent infections. 2. tolerated infections. 3. occult infections. Persistent infections first, harm the infected, second, within generations their offspring through diaplacentar transmission, and third, contaminate the environment through permanent excretors. Most of the problems in infectiology arise through contamination of the environment by permanent excretors together with spread of germs by way of living and non-living vectors. The spread of specifically pathogenous germs through carriers is, however, possible without their being excreted. In these cases the sources of this spread of infection are the blood in the stage of viremia or bacteremia (biological transmission through living vectors), the reproductive organs (copulation, diaplacentar and germinal transmission) or the contaminated organs of slaughtered animals. The risks for the health of human beings due to carriers of infectious agents and permanent excretors has dramatically increased through international tourism, the problems caused by refugees, and the crowding of people in the metropoles. Medicine tries to meet this challenge by applying new methods of diagnosis and prophylaxis.