Public health and pandemics

Question 1

Name some ways in which infections can spread (eg. bad ventilation)

Answer 1

• bad ventilation
• overcrowding
• environmental and climate changes (human behaviours leading to stagnant water can lead to mosquito’s breeding for eg or Legionnaires disease)
• conflict - wars stop access to healthcare
• global movement of goods
• global travel or immigration

Question 2

What type of reservoir does influenza have?

Answer 2

animal - chicken, pigs etc.

Question 3

What is a fomite?

Answer 3

Contaminated material (eg someone sneezing and the infectious particles going onto the surface and spreading)

Question 4

What is a vector?

Answer 4

Carrier of disease for eg. a fly landing on poo and then transferring bacteria to food

Question 5

What is a vehicle for transmission?

Answer 5

An inanimate substance (e.g., food, milk, dust, clothing, instrument) by or on which an infectious agent passes from an infected to a susceptible host.

Question 6

Describe the difference between sporadic cases of infection, clusters, outbreak, epidemic and pandemic

Answer 6

Sporadic case - just a case not linked to any other case

Cluster - couple of cases but NOT linked

Outbreak - few cases and we CAN find a link between the cases

Epidemic - many many outbreaks happening throughout a city/region/country

Pandemic - Widespread, international community spread throughout countries. If we do not get ontop of them, they can become endemic. This is when the virus will always be there in the background (outbreaks in winter for eg.)

Question 7

Name some public health countermeasures for infection spread

Answer 7

• Hygiene
• Social distancing
• Isolation/quarantine
• PPE
• Treatment as prevention - treating everyone with HIV and this reduces the risk of spreading
• Chemoprophylaxis - treatment just after they are exposed to stop them developing full scale disease - meningitis and HIV (anti retrovirals)
• Vaccination