Introduction
Infectious diseases are the class of diseases that are caused by microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses and eukaryotes, and infectious proteins (prions). Infectious diseases can be transmissible diseases (also known as communicable diseases) if they are transmitted from an infected to an uninfected individual, directly or indirectly, or they can be non-transmissible diseases if an infected host does not generate further infected individuals.
Infectious diseases can be directly transmitted such as through direct contact or fomites or indirectly transmitted by water, air, food or other vectors. Fungi are unusual in that otherwise frequent transmission by insect vectors, such as blood-feeding arthropods, is very rare (Rosenberg and Beard 2011). However, vector-borne transmission is not unknown, and the transmission of the microsporidian Trachipleistophora hominis into humans with HIV-AIDS by mosquitoes is thought to have occurred, albeit rarely (Mathis et al. 2005). Histoplasma capsulatum var. farciminosum has been isolated from the alimentary tract of biting flies, suggesting a role in the transmission of the fungusM. C. Fisher (*)
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Imperial College
London, London, UK
e-mail: matthew.fisher@imperial.ac.uk
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
S. Seyedmousavi et al. (eds.), Emerging and Epizootic Fungal Infections in Animals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72093-7_2
(Gabal and Hennager 1983) and a significant association has been reported between tick infestations and the lesions caused by histoplasmosis in mules (Ameni and Terefe 2004).
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