B6 - Treating And Preventing Disease Flashcards
What ways can you treat and prevent disease?
Wearing masks (COVID)
Antiseptics on open wounds
Disinfecting surfaces (COVID)
Vaccination
Medicine
Isolation
Washing hands
What is Herd Immunity?
If enough of the population are vaccinated against a disease, it makes it very difficult for the pathogen to spread.
This means that everyone in the population is protected, even though not everyone is vaccinated.
What is Vaccination?
Vaccination involves injecting small amounts of dead or weakened pathogens into the body.
This stimulates white blood cells to produce antibodies.
If the same pathogen enters the body again, white blood cells make the antibodies very quickly to prevent infection.
What is Digitalis used for? Where does it come from?
Digitalis is used to strengthen the heartbeat.
Digitalis originated in the 18th century where it was extracted from foxgloves.
Whatis Aspirin used for? Where does it come from?
Aspirin is used for relieving pain and inflamattion. It is also used to treat a wide range of health problems.
Aspirin’s anti-flammatory and pain relieving properties were first recorded in 400BC where they had been found in the bark of willow trees.
What is Penicillin used for? Where does it come from? Who discovered it? How did he discover it?
Penicillin is used for blood infections.
Penicillin was found on a plate which was filled with mould and bacteria.
Alexander Fleming was the person who discovered Penicillin.
Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin on accident. He was carrying out studies by growing bacteria. Not following Health and Safety procedures, he left his study laying around, being careless. He went on holiday and returned to discover that his plate had spots of mould, which would show a clear ring around the spot which the bacteria was taken away
What are Painkillers used for?
Painkillers are used to treat the symptoms of disease (e.g. headaches, pain, fevers) but do not kill pathogens.
What do Antibiotics do?
Antibiotics (e.g. penicllin) kill bacteria (but not virus’). Specific bacteria should be treated with specific antibiotics.
Why is it difficult to develop drugs?
It is difficult to develop drugs that kill virus’ without also damaging the body’s tissues. This is because the virus hijack cells so to destroy the virus you have to deatroy the cell.
What is Toxicity?
Whether the drug has any poisonous side effects.
What is Efficacy?
How effective a drug is.
What is Dosage?
The strength of the drug that should be administered?.
What is a placebo?
A placebo is a substance that does not contain the actual drug.
Explain why it is important to use a placebo in drug trials.
So patients nor doctors do not know what group they were allocated to. This is to monitor the patients’ health carefully and examine the effects.
Imagine you had developed a revolutionary drug designed to reduce the symptoms of arthritis. Explain the steps of testing you would have to put your drug through before it could be prescribed by your doctor.
Firstly, the drug would need to be developed in a lab using computer models and cells.
Secondly, you would need to test it on animals, to see if the drug has any effect on living organisms
Thirdly, a small group of healthy volunteers would need to use the drug, to check if it’s safe.
Next, you would need tl test it on a small number of patients with the illness, to ensure it works.
Then, the drug would need to be tested on a large number of volunteer patients tomonitor the effectiveness of the drug, sfaety, dosage and side effects.
Hopefully, after these steps, the drug would be then approved and orescribed by the doctor.
