B5 Communicable Diseases Flashcards
Pathogens
Microorganisms that cause diseases
Communicable diseases
pathogens such as bacteria and viruses that can be passed from one person to another e.g.tuberculosis and flu.
Non- communicable diseases
can’t be transmitted from one person to the other e.g. heart disease and arthritis.
Health
State of physical and mental well-being not just an absence or disease
Other factors that affect health
Diet- not getting the right nutrients
Stress-too much can link to heart disease, mental problems and some cancers
Life situation-financially, gender, children, ethnicity etc.
How do health problems interact?
often one problem makes another worse e.g. viruses-can trigger changes that lead to cancers like human papilloma virus can cause cervical cancer and severe physical ill health can lead to depression and other mental illness
Ignaz semmelsis
Semmelweis was a 1850s doctor who discovered that the fever was caused by some kind of infectious agent as medical students went from dissecting a dead body to delivering a baby without washing their hands and many women died from childbed fever few days after giving birth so he made them wash their hands and the deaths were reduced
Louis pasteur
showed that microorganisms caused disease. He developed vaccines against such diseases such as anthrax and rabies.
Joseph lister
Joseph Lister started to use antiseptic chemicals to destroy pathogens before they caused infection in operating theatres.
Preventing infections hygiene:
Simple hygiene is one of the most effective ways these include:
Washing hands especially after using toilet,cooking,contact animal.
Preventing infections isolating infected individuals:
especially a serious disease so fewer healthy people come in contact with the infected so it is less likely pathogens will be passed on.
Preventing infections destroying or controlling vectors:
like mosquitos who can carry a range of diseases but by controlling or being destroyed it can be prevented or reduced.
Preventing infections vaccination:
when doctors introduce a small amount of a small amount of a harmless form of a specific pathogen so your immune system is prepered this is succesful way for protecting large numbers of humans and animals.
Measles how is it spread and what are the symptoms
The main symptoms are a fever and a rash.
Spread by the inhalation of droplets from coughs and sneezes and is very infectious.(it is a virus)
HIV what are the symptoms and how does it spread
Symptoms are it causes a mid, flu like illness then attacks the immune system until it is so badly damaged it can’t cope with infections or other cancers and the patient has now developed aids.
It is spread by direct sexual contact, exchange of bodily fluids such as blood with sharing needles or unscreened blood in transfusions and from mother to child in breast milk.(it is a virus)