Page 27 - GHES-3-1

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability
Peace and quality health is entrepreneurship

Figure 2. Examples of contact-related skin infections. Source: Adapted from Lincoln & Likness (2011), Martykanova et al. (2019), Peterson et al. (2019),
and Zinder et al. (2010)

Figure 3. Collection of samples for diagnosing sports-accidental infections and pharyngitis: sterile swab and an indication of proper samples collection
areas. Source: Adapted from Vorvick (2021)

the upper respiratory tract (Yan et al., 2022) (Figure 4). droplets, air, or contacts are identified as the leading causes
Infectious agents commonly acquired from sports activities of morbidity in sports (Natarajan & Miller, 2017; Nincevic
include viruses such as Haemophilus influenzae and hepatitis et al., 2023; Svendsen et al., 2016; Yan et al., 2022).
B virus; fungi such as Aspergillus fumigatus or Cryptococcus All forms of infections can become systemic and spread
neoformans; bacteria including Bordetella pertussis and to the bloodstream, as seen in skin or wound infections
Chlamydophila pneumoniae; and parasites such as Giardia caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes
lamblia and Cryptosporidium parvum (Jaworski & Rygiel, (Cravez et al., 2020; Kanwal & Vaitla, 2023; Şahin et al.,
2020; Papagiannis et al., 2020; Watanabe, 2019). 2022). The major sports-accidental infections identified
Infected or injured individuals can develop systemic were skin infections, URTIs, fecal-oral/gastrointestinal
complications (Ahmadinejad et al., 2014; Herrero, 2020), infections, and blood-borne infections (Figures 2 and 4).
resulting in incapacitation that may prevent them from
working. This risk was a key reason for prioritizing the 3.1.1. Other pressing sports-accidental infections
prevention of other diseases during sporting activities amid discovered: The hypothesis
the COVID-19 pandemic (Alhussaini et al., 2023; Yan et al., In addition to the major sports-accidental infections,
2022). Respiratory tract infections transmitted through heart/cardiovascular diseases (Farzam et al., 2023; Han

Volume 3 Issue 1 (2025) 19 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.2904