• Question: How does an animal hold a disease without it dying?

    Asked by to Bethany, Hannah, Keith, Peter on 25 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Peter Elliott

      Peter Elliott answered on 25 Jun 2014:


      Some animals act as reservoirs to some disease causing organisms. Almost like a safe house where they can exist to survive. The animal may not be harmed because the animal has different vitals (e.g. different body temperature).
      Somehow the organism that causes disease can sense this and does not infect and kill the animal it is in.

    • Photo: Bethany Dearlove

      Bethany Dearlove answered on 27 Jun 2014:


      Animals that just provide a ‘home’ for a disease and don’t show any ill effects are known as reservoir hosts. These animals can be actively infected by the disease, but are asymptomatic – meaning that they don’t show any symptoms of disease such as vomiting, diarrhoea, bleeding and so on. If there are no symptoms, then the disease isn’t doing anything detrimental to the host and it won’t cause the animal to die.

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