Fighting disease Flashcards
What do vaccinations do?
Protect from future infections
What does having a vaccination involve?
Injecting small amounts of dead or inactive microorganisms. These carry antigens which stimulate your body to produce antibodies to attack them
If you’ve had a vaccination and you come into contact with that pathogen again what happens?
Your body recognises it and your white body cells quickly attack it before you feel ill
Name 2 pros of vaccinations
1) control lots of infectious diseases that were once common in the uk eg - smallpox 2) if large amounts of the population are vaccinated epidemics can be prevented
Name 2 cons of vaccinations
1) don’t always work so you don’t get immunity
2) can have a bad reaction
What do painkillers do?
Just relieve pain and reduce symptoms. They DON’T tackle the cause o the disease
What do antibiotics do?
Kill the bacteria but don’t destroy viruses
Why is it hard to produce an antibiotic to kill viruses?
Because viruses reproduce using your own body cells so its hard to get an antibiotic that kills the viruses and not the body cell
What does antibiotic resistance mean?
It means that the bacteria is resistant to antibiotics so it is hard to kill
Name an antibiotic resistant bacteria
MRSA
Who was Semmelweis and what did he do?
He introduced the idea of washing hands as in a hospital on the wards where doctors were going from dissecting dead bodies to delivering babies lots of mothers died however on wards with midwives less women died. He said that doctors needed to wash their hands inbetween going from dissecting bodies todelivering babies
Explain the dangers of bacteria
1) they can mutate
2) new strains can be antibiotic resistance
3) new strain could spread rapidly and no one would be immune
4) an epidemic
Explain the dangers of viruses
1) mutate often which makes it hard to develop vaccines as the changes in their DNA can lead to different antigens
2) a pandemic
