Fever, muscle aches, nausea or diarrhea are the most common symptoms, but the infection can spread to the nervous system, causing headaches, a stiff neck and convulsions. About 2,500 people become seriously ill in the United States each year from listeria and about 500 die.
Confidence votes 40.5K. The symptoms are your body's way of reacting to a disease. It is often said that pathogens are the same as germs and cause only infectious disease, however, the word can mean the agent that causes any type of disease.iseases caused by pathogens are often contagious and include things such as Meningitis, Influenza and Tuberculosis. Diseases not caused by pathogens are generally things wh â¦ ich go wrong in the body. For example, Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis and Motor Neurone Disease are all diseases not caused by pathogens.
In humans, diseases can be caused by the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. Bacterial growth, however, is not mandatory to cause disease. For example, some bacterial pathogens cause disease by virtue of a toxic component of the bacterial cell such as lipopolysaccharide.