Fomites was formerly used more-or-less interchangeably with "vector" in preventive medicine, but vector has come to mean living things that do the same thing, primarily (and according to some authorities, exclusively) arthropods.

I've also heard fomites used to mean feces by medical people, though not recently.

"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous