Chapter 6: Preventing and Treating Diseases

Question 1

What does immunization involve?

Answer 1

Immunization involves giving you a vaccine made up of a dead or inactivated form of disease causing microorganism

Question 2

What is the main difference between drugs like paracetamol and drugs like penicillin?

Answer 2

paracetamol:
-pain killer that stops symptoms but not the actual disease
penicillin:
-an antibiotic that kills the bacteria that cause disease

Question 3

How do antibiotics work?

Answer 3

antibiotics damage the bacterial cells with out harming your own cells. It is usually taken as a pill or syrup, but are sometimes injected straight into your bloodstream

Question 4

What is the issue with antibiotics?

Answer 4

• they cannot kill viral pathogens (this is because the are inside the cell, and creating an antibiotic that kills the pathogen but not the cell is difficult
• some bacteria are resistant to all know antibiotics

Question 5

How did Alexander Fleming discover penicillin?

Answer 5

He created it accidentally, and found out that a substance called penicillium killed the bacteria

Question 6

What is the criteria for a good medicine?

Answer 6

• effective
• safe
• stable
• must be cleared from your system once it has done its work

Question 7

What is an antigen?

Answer 7

Something on the cell surface’s cell membrane that an antibody can bind to