A condition that prevents the customary function of the body is defined as a disease. There are three categories of illness.
They are endogenous diseases, exogenous diseases and unknown diseases.
Endogenous diseases are those coming from my body. Some examples of endogenous diseases are diabetes mellitus (type 1 and type 2), hemophilia, goitre, pellagra, rickets, cardiac murmur, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Endogenous diseases are not contagious, but some are like haemophilia.
Exogenous disease is caused by factors outside the body. Examples of exogenous diseases are bacterial infections such as anthrax, cholera, pertussis, tuberculosis and urinary tract infections. It also includes viral infections such as AIDS, dengue, hepatitis, influenza, epidemic rhinitis, smallpox and yellow fever. In addition, there are fungal infections including streptococcus, cryptococcosis and histoplasmosis. Yes, let's not forget the parasitic infections from cystitis to trypanosomiasis. Finally, there are prion infections and discovered in the 1960s, the scientific community still is not trying to find a cure that fully understands the illness. At this point our knowledge is very basic. Prions are mainly composed of proteins and create structures that can grow by abnormally folding and convert normal protein into an abnormally structured form. Cold examples of some of these diseases include Alpers syndrome, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), and cool. All known prion diseases attack the central nervous system and / or the brain. Everything is fatal.
The final category is an unknown disease. This is a bit confusing. This illness is not necessarily known, but the cause is unknown. These main examples are Alzheimer's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.
The majority of deaths worldwide are due to exogenous diseases, but that applies only in developing countries. In developed countries, eight of the top 10 causes of death are endogenous diseases. This is due to better nutrition, superior health care, superior environmental conditions, and a longer life expectancy.
Perhaps the most terrible thing would be prion exogenous disease. We have a poor understanding of how they are communicated and how they propagate and how more important they cure them. They are robust! They are resistant to ultraviolet rays and can be rendered harmless only by the toughest sterilization process. In many ways they are the most latent to attack the nervous system and the brain. For the victim and the victim's family, death is slow and painful.
As discussed earlier, this disease was only discovered in the 1960s and was not named until 1982. Prion disease has not gained much attention from medical researchers, pharmaceutical companies or government. There are no victims in large quantities.
My fear is that, like AIDS, the head is backed by a sudden attack against a population for which prion diseases are not ready. Like AIDS, developing countries are probably hit hardest. We must concentrate more attention on this new threat. We must learn from the mistakes of AIDS epidemics. We need preparation!
