| Description: | This diagram illustrates the classic iceberg concept of infection, dividing the seen, or discernible effects of a disease process, from the effects that are unseen. The disease process begins at a point of inoculation, reaching the prodromal, or earliest onset of symptoms, and eventually becoming a full blown, observable clinical disease, where it reaches the tip of the iceberg.
Those patients that are visibly infected with an organism represent just the “tip of the iceberg” of patients that are colonized or infected.Just because a patient is not showing signs of infection, does not mean that he does not carry organisms that could be transferred to another patient if proper hygiene and other infection control precautions are not taken. |
