About respiratory infections Respiratory infections affect the nose, throat and lungs; they include influenza the "flu" , colds and pertussis whooping cough. Keep your germs to yourself: Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when sneezing, coughing or blowing your nose.

Discard used tissues in the trash as soon as you can. Always wash your hands after sneezing, blowing your nose, or coughing, or after touching used tissues or handkerchiefs. Use warm water and soap to wash your hands. If you don't have soap and water, use alcohol-base hand gel or disposable wipes.

Try to stay home if you have a cough and fever. See your doctor as soon as you can if you have a cough and fever, and follow their instructions.

Scoop up granules and waste using a piece of cardboard or similar , place in a plastic bag and dispose of appropriately. Mix one part bleach to 10 parts water and apply to the area for 10 minutes. Wash the area with hot water and detergent. Dry the area. Dispose of paper towelling and gloves appropriately.

Wash your hands. Rinse any contaminated clothing in cold running water, soak in bleach solution for half an hour, then wash separately from other clothing or linen with hot water and detergent. Infection control — disposing of infectious waste To dispose of infectious waste that has been contaminated with blood or other body fluids: Wear heavy duty gloves.

Place waste in plastic bags marked 'infectious waste'. Dispose of waste in accordance with EPA guidance External Link. Workplace infection control — handling contaminated sharps Infection control procedures when handling needles and other sharp contaminated objects include: Never attempt to re-cap or bend used needles.

Handle by the barrel. Infection control — occupational exposure to body fluids If you come in contact with blood or body fluids: Flush the area with running water.

Wash the area with plenty of warm water and soap. Report the incident to the appropriate staff member. Seek medical advice. Where to get help Your GP doctor Your local council's health department Occupational health and safety officer at your workplace Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit, Department of Health and Human Services, Victorian Government Tel.

Managing exposures to blood and body fluids or substances External Link , Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance, Department of Health and Human Services, Victorian Government.

Managing spills of blood and body fluids and substances External Link , Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance, Department of Health and Human Services, Victorian Government. Give feedback about this page.

Was this page helpful? Yes No. View all infections. Related information. How to wash your hands using soap and water Wet hands with warm water. Apply soap to cover all hand surfaces and lather thoroughly. Vigorously rub your hands together for at least 15 seconds, but 30 seconds is best.

Rub palms, spaces between fingers, backs of hands and wrists. Rub fingers, fingertips and thumbs. Rinse hands under running water. Pat hands dry thoroughly with a paper or single-use towel. Use the towel to turn off the tap.

Apply enough product either gel, liquid or foam in the palm of one hand to cover all hand surfaces. Rub all surfaces of hands and wrists. Rub fingertips and thumbs. Hands must remain moist for at least 15 seconds. Rub until hands are completely dry.

Cover your nose and mouth when coughing and sneezing When you cough and sneeze, germs and diseases spread through the air. You can prevent spreading your germs to other people or onto surfaces around you — Keep tissues handy and use a clean one to cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze.

Do not reuse tissues. After use, discard it in a trash container immediately. Clean your hands immediately with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer. If you do not have a clean tissue available, turn away from other people and cough or sneeze into the bend of your arm and not your hand.

Antimicrobial resistance is a serious public health problem. The development of antibiotic resistance can be prevented by minimising unnecessary prescribing and overprescribing of antibiotics, the correct use of prescribed antibiotics, and good hygiene and infection control practices.

Some bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics that were once commonly used to treat them. In the past, these infections were usually controlled by penicillin.

Rates of antimicrobial resistance are increasing across the world. Antimicrobial resistance is a major public health problem.

The most serious concern is that some bacteria have become resistant to almost all of the readily available antibiotics. This can make infections and diseases more serious and challenging and costly to treat.

These bacteria can also spread from person-to-person. Standard precautions in hospitals are work practices that provide a basic level of infection prevention and control for the care of all people, regardless of their diagnosis or presumed infection status. These precautions should be followed in all hospitals and healthcare facilities and include:.

Implementing standard precautions minimises the risk of transmission of infection from person to person, even in high-risk situations. Additional precautions also known as transmission-based precautions are used when caring for people who are known or suspected to be infected or colonised with highly infectious pathogens micro-organisms that cause disease.

Additional precautions are tailored to the particular pathogen and route of transmission. Additional precautions may include:.

Antimicrobial resistant bacteria can also be passed from person to person within the community. This is becoming more common.

Ways to prevent transmission of organisms, including antibiotic resistant bacteria, are:. This page has been produced in consultation with and approved by:. Content on this website is provided for information purposes only.

Information about a therapy, service, product or treatment does not in any way endorse or support such therapy, service, product or treatment and is not intended to replace advice from your doctor or other registered health professional.

The information and materials contained on this website are not intended to constitute a comprehensive guide concerning all aspects of the therapy, product or treatment described on the website.

All users are urged to always seek advice from a registered health care professional for diagnosis and answers to their medical questions and to ascertain whether the particular therapy, service, product or treatment described on the website is suitable in their circumstances.

The State of Victoria and the Department of Health shall not bear any liability for reliance by any user on the materials contained on this website. Skip to main content. Home Infections. Major pharmaceutical companies have limited interest in dedicating resources to the antibiotics market because these short-course drugs are not as profitable as drugs that treat chronic conditions and lifestyle-related ailments, such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

Antibiotic research and development is also expensive, risky, and time consuming. Return on that investment can be unpredictable, considering that resistance to antibiotics develops over time, eventually making them less effective.

New antiviral drugs are also in short supply. These medicines have been much more difficult to develop than antibacterial drugs because antivirals can damage host cells where the viruses reside.

Today, there are more antiviral drugs for HIV than for any other viral disease, transforming an infection that was once considered a death sentence into a manageable chronic condition.

But novel drugs are needed to combat other epidemic viral infections, such as influenza and hepatitis B and C. Several programs have been developed to stimulate research and development of new vaccines and medicines. The U. Department of Health and Human Services recently formed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which provides an integrated, systematic approach to the development and purchase of the vaccines, drugs, therapies, and diagnostic tools necessary for public health medical emergencies.

The Cures Acceleration Network provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in March , is designed to move research discoveries through to safe and effective therapies by awarding grants through the National Institutes of Health to biotech companies, universities, and patient advocacy groups.

And nonprofit organizations dedicated to accelerating the discovery and clinical development of new therapies to treat infectious diseases are bringing together philanthropists, medical research foundations, industry leaders, and other key stakeholders to forge effective collaborations.

Daily habits provide some of the strongest defenses against infectious diseases. Among the sensible actions you can take:. Keeping our nation safe from disease outbreaks depends on effective and well-coordinated programs that monitor public health.

What are some of the key efforts at work in the United States? The mission of public health is to safeguard and improve the health of the community as a whole. Effectively responding to infectious disease threats therefore requires a robust public health system.

In the United States, public health surveillance for infectious diseases is conducted through a variety of agencies. Health care providers and others report cases of notifiable infectious diseases as defined by local and state health codes to state health departments.

State health department officials, in turn, verify disease reports, monitor disease incidence, identify possible outbreaks, and forward their findings to the CDC. The CDC and other federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the U.

Department of Agriculture, and the U. Department of Defense, independently gather and analyze information for disease surveillance. Public health advocates have called for improved surveillance to better monitor infectious diseases across the country. Among their recommendations: a national electronic infectious diseases reporting system; innovative methods of disease surveillance such as automated laboratory reporting of infectious disease or systematic gathering of informal reports of disease from the Internet ; and fortifying the entire public health system, which historically has been underfunded compared to biomedical research.

Syndromic surveillance—the near- or real-time monitoring of nonspecific pre-diagnostic signs of disease outbreaks—is an innovative surveillance method that is being explored by some cities and states with assistance from the federal government as a means of providing early warning of infectious disease outbreaks.

Syndromic surveillance rests on the idea that, following large-scale exposure to infectious disease in an epidemic or bioterrorist attack, people will first develop symptoms, stay away from work or school, and attempt to treat themselves before seeing a doctor.

These systems therefore monitor school and work absenteeism, sales of over-the-counter medications, illness-related calls, and other patterns that suggest an outbreak. However, most surveillance still focuses on tracking reported infections. Foodborne diseases are largely preventable—but the goal requires vigilance in every step from the farm to the table.

Good agricultural and manufacturing practices can reduce the spread of microbes among animals and prevent contamination of foods.

Monitoring the entire food production process can pinpoint hazards and control points where contamination can be prevented, limited, or eliminated. First developed by NASA to ensure that the food eaten by astronauts was safe, HACCP safety principles are now being applied to a widening range of foods, including meat, poultry, seafood, fruit juices, and other products.

In recent years the U. Advocates have recommended that all food safety activities be consolidated into a single federal agency with a unified mission.

National borders offer trivial impediment to infectious disease threats. Therefore, many of the strategies described above must be implemented worldwide, not just nationally, in order to have a true impact.

Just as national surveillance is critical to controlling outbreaks within a nation, global surveillance is a critical component to responding to infectious disease worldwide.

These require WHO member states to report certain diseases and outbreaks that may represent public health emergencies of international concern to the WHO and to strengthen their capacities for public health surveillance, diagnosis, and response.

ports of entry. Technological advances in disease surveillance and detection such as regional syndromic surveillance, bioinformatics, and rapid diagnostic methods, have strengthened infectious disease control and prevention efforts.

The global response to SARS, for example, was triggered by a report posted to the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases—or ProMED Mail—a global electronic reporting system for outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases and toxins.

By identifying viruses, bacteria, and parasites in animals where they naturally live, and monitoring those organisms as they move from animals into people, it may be possible to prevent deadly new infections of animal origin from entering and racing through human populations.

The One Health Initiative, a worldwide movement to forge collaborations among physicians, veterinarians, and other related disciplines, is an example of efforts to improve communication about human and animal diseases. The gaps in life expectancy between the richest and poorest countries now exceed 40 years—in large measure owing to the toll of infectious diseases.

Safe water supplies, sewage treatment and disposal, improved food safety, and vaccination programs are urgently needed in developing nations.

A major barrier to achieving these improvements is the underlying weakness of public health systems in resource-poor countries, including a shortage of health care workers, which hinders efforts to immunize, treat, and monitor the status of patients.

Poor nations also lack disease surveillance programs and up-to-date laboratories, which are essential in the mission to find, diagnose, and contain infectious diseases. Always wash your hands after sneezing, blowing your nose, or coughing, or after touching used tissues or handkerchiefs.

Use warm water and soap to wash your hands. If you don't have soap and water, use alcohol-base hand gel or disposable wipes. Try to stay home if you have a cough and fever. See your doctor as soon as you can if you have a cough and fever, and follow their instructions.

Take medicine as prescribed and get lots of rest. If asked, use face masks provided in your doctor's office or clinic's waiting room. Follow office or clinic staff instructions to help stop the spread of germs.