Bacterial Diseases and Preventing Disease

Question 1

Explain the bacterial disease Salmonella - symptoms, cause of symptoms, infection, and prevention.

Answer 1

Causes food poisoning. Infected people can suffer from fever, stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea. Symptoms caused by the toxins that the bacteria produce. You get Salmonella food poisoning by eating food that’s been contaminated by being prepared in unhygienic conditions. In the UK, most poultry is given a vaccination against Salmonella. This is to control the spread of the disease.

Question 2

Explain the bacterial disease Gonorrhoea.

Answer 2

It’s a sexually transmitted disease (STD). STDs are passed on by sexual contact, e.g. having unprotected sex. Gonorrhoea is caused by bacteria. A person with gonorrhoea will get pain when they urinate. Another symptom is a thick yellow or green discharge from the vagina or the penis. Gonorrhoea was originally treated with an antibiotic called penicillin, but this has become trickier now because trains of the bacteria have become resistant to it. To prevent the spread of gonorrhoea, people can be treated with antibiotics and should use barrier methods of contraception, such as condoms.

Question 3

List four ways the spread of disease can be reduced and/or even prevented.

Answer 3

1. Being hygienic - e.g. washing your hands thoroughly before preparing food or after you’ve sneezed can stop you infecting another person.
2. Destroying vectors - By getting rid of the organisms that spread disease, you can prevent the disease from being passed on. Vectors that are insects can be killed using insecticides or by destroying their habitat so that they can no longer breed.
3. Isolating infected individuals - if they have a communicable disease, it prevents them from passing it on to anyone else.
4. Vaccination - Vaccinating people and animals against communicable diseases means that they can’t develop the infection and then pass it on to someone else.