The Common Cold
The common cold is an acute, communicable, viral disease characterized by nasal stuffiness, sneezing, coryza, throat irritation, and no or minimal fever. Although the terms upper respiratory tract infection (URI)…
The Human Microbiome
Introduction The human microbiome consists of different microbial communities colonizing specific body sites ( Fig. 5.1 ) and fluctuating during several life stages. Because pediatrics is fundamentally oriented around the…
Host Response to Infections: The “-omics” Revolution
Introduction There has been tremendous progress in our attempt to discern the molecular basis of infectious diseases, yet several gaps remain both in the understanding of disease processes and in…
Normal and Impaired Immunologic Responses to Infection
This chapter provides an overview of immunologic responses to infection and considers host interactions with different classes of pathogens, normal innate and adaptive immune mechanisms, the developing host responses of…
Molecular Determinants of Microbial Pathogenesis
Despite the availability of a wide variety of antimicrobial agents and expansion of vaccination programs, infectious diseases remain a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality worldwide. A number of…
Fever: Pathogenesis and Treatment
Fever is the thermoregulated increase in body temperature above normal as the result of a coordinated response to a pathologic insult. The two essential features of fever are that it…
