Definition of "infectious disease" [in•fec•tious dis•ease]

• Any disease caused by the entrance, growth, and multiplication of microorganisms in the body; a germ disease. It may not be contagious.
• Sometimes, as distinguished from <contr>contagious disease</contr>, such a disease communicated by germs carried in the air or water, and thus spread without contact with the patient, as measles.

Gnu Collaboartive International Dictionary of English: licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

• "Included among the dozens of participants were pediatricians, infectious disease specialists, and immunotoxicologists."
• "Dr. Henning was one of the more junior doctors aboard, but she had completed a one-semester work project with the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, and was the closest thing the ship had to an infectious disease specialist."
• "In later years, Wakefield would say that the genesis of that insight was neither lab research nor collaboration with infectious disease specialists: His “eureka” moment occurred one winter night when, while flipping through an old virology textbook, he happened upon a description of how the measles virus had, on occasion, been shown to cause ulcers."