Medical Microbiology Flashcards

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1
Q

What is epidemiology?

A

The study of how often different disease occur within or between populations, an integral part of a basic description

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2
Q

Why is epidemiology used?

A

To identify diseases
To identify outbreaks
To find the sources of illnesses
To identify risk factors for diseases
To identify interventions that change the risk or course of a disease

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3
Q

What are the first steps of epidemiology?

A

Who gets ill? - Age, ethnicity, gender
Do they have a common occupation or pastime?
Do they have an “event” in common?
Do they live/work/study in proximity to eachother?

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4
Q

How is data collected?

A

Abstracting from already available sources
Surveys
Physical examination
Clinical studies
Screening programmes
Disease surveillance programmes

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5
Q

How can an epidemiological population be defined?

A

Geographically
Occupation
Age
Gender
Race

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6
Q

What are the key measure in a population?

A

Incidence and prevalence

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7
Q

What is the key measure of the risk of disease?

A

Relative risk

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8
Q

What are opportunistic pathogens?

A

Pathogens that exploit us when we have something else wrong

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9
Q

What is the reservoir?

A

Where we find the microbes

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10
Q

What is a vector?

A

Something that transmits the microbe from the reservoir to us

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11
Q

Where do we get infections from?

A

Environmental sources - Food, water, air
Other animals - Directly, indirectly, as food
Other humans
Our own normal flora

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12
Q

What are some key interventions that can be used?

A

Vaccinations
Antibiotic therapy
Isolation and quarantine

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13
Q

What is the aim of antimicrobial therapy?

A

To kill or inhibit the microbe without harming the patient

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14
Q

What is intrinsic resistnace?

A

Resistance which is always present and doesn’t present a major concern - “pre exposure resistance”

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15
Q

What is acquired resistance?

A

A species that was once sensitive to an antibiotic becomes resistant

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16
Q

What are the four major mechanistic groups?

A

The antimicrobial is destroyed or inactivated
The target site in/on the microbe is altered
There is a reduction in the permeability of the microbial cell wall
The step where the antimicrobial acts is completely circumvented

17
Q

What are some examples of environmental interventions?

A

Control of reservoirs
Control of vectors
Provision of clean water
Food industry intervention
Incineration of infectious waste
Quarantine
Large scale disinfection

18
Q

What are the four sub-disciplines of microbiology?

A

Bacteriology
Virology
Parasitology
Mycology

19
Q

How are bacteria and fungi usually researched?

A

By culture, and sometimes molecular

20
Q

How are viruses researched?

A

Electron microscopy and tissue culture

21
Q

How are parasites researched?

A

Microscopy, molecular being introduced

22
Q

What are bacteria and fungi cultured in?

A

Non-selective agar - A medium that hasn’t had anything added
Selective agar - A medium that has had agents added to it
Enrichment medium - Highly nutritional medium
Discriminatory/differential agar - Enable the differentiation between different organisms

23
Q

What other factors can be modified in medias?

A

Temperature
Atmosphere
Selection pressures

24
Q

What are some simple tests that can be conducted on a culture?

A

Oxidase
Catalase
Coagulase

25
Q

What are some immunological follow up tests on a culture?

A

Strep grouping
Salmonella sub-typing
S. aureus by latex testing

26
Q

What is MALDI-TOF?

A

A protein-based system to identify to the species level

27
Q

What is used by labs to decide how to process samples?

A

The recognised National Standard Methods