COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Question 1

What is a communicable disease?

Answer 1

• Caused by infectious agents and can be passed from one person or animal to another

Question 2

What are examples of infectious agents?

Answer 2

• Bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, or other toxic things

Question 3

How cans transmission occur?

Answer 3

• Directly (Contact with body discharge)
• Indirectly (sharing a drinking glass)
• Vectors (mosquitos)
  e. g. Malaria, chicken pox, influenza

Question 4

What is a notifiable disease?

Answer 4

• Where if disease occurs, by law we have to notify health department
• Each case must be reported and monitored e.g. HIV, lab confirmed influenza or avian flu, malaria, measles, mumps, Tetanus, Cholera, Hep A,B,C, and E

Question 5

What is an infection?

Answer 5

• Invasion and multiplication of microorganisms in body tissues, especially that causing local cellular injury due to competitive metabolism,toxins,intracellular respiration or antigen-antibody response

Question 6

What is a chronic disease and what are the states?

Answer 6

• Long duration of the order of weeks or months

- Incubation period, symptomatic period, carrier state

Question 7

What is the difference between a primary and opportunistic pathogen?

Answer 7

Primary pathogen: Presence of this pathogen causes the disease and their intrinsic virulence
Opportunistic pathogen: Requires the depressed immune response e.g. TB

Question 8

What type of disease is Polio? (in terms of location of pathogen in body )

Answer 8

• Fecal to oral borne

- Caused by virus (destroys nerve cells in s.c.)

Question 9

What type of disease is HIV? (in terms of location of pathogen in body)

Answer 9

• Blood borne
• Disables body’s immune system until it can no longer fight the virus
• Transmission through sex. breastfeeding, blood transfusions

Question 10

Which type of hepatitis;A-C is preventable through a vaccine?

Answer 10

• Hepatitis B
• Accounts for 60% of liver cancer if contracted
• Transmission via mother-child, needles, medical equipment, vaginal,menstrual fluids ect.

Question 11

What are airborne diseases?

Answer 11

• Caused by pathogenic microbes discharged from an infected person by coughing, sneezing, laughing, and lose personal contact or aerosolization of the microbe
• DIscharged microbes remain suspended in the air on dust particles, respiratory and water droplets

Question 12

What is an example of an airborne disease?

Answer 12

• TB
• Requires contact for an extended period
• Must breathe it in
• Opportunistic pathogen- must have depressed immune system to get it

Question 13

Why can’t we eradicate TB?

Answer 13

• Doesn’t meet the requirements for eradication
• Has diagnostic tests with high specificity and sensitivity but doesn’t have an animal reservoir for infection and no effective intervention to interrupt transmission
  (Multidrug resistant TB)

Question 14

What is an advantage of a chronic infection from the pathogens point of view?

Answer 14

• Infectious for a longer period of time so can infect more people(Not good)