Vaccination Flashcards
Why are vaccinations used for?
People can be immunised against a pathogen through vaccination. Different vaccines are needed for different pathogens.
What does a vaccination include?
Vaccination involves putting a small amount of an inactive form of a pathogen, or dead pathogen, into the body.
What can vaccines contain?
- Live pathogens treated to make them harmless
- Harmless fragments of the pathogen
- Toxins produced by pathogens
- Dead pathogens
What do vaccinations do?
When injected into the body, they stimulate white blood cells to produce antibodies against the pathogen.
Why are we given vaccinations at a young age?
Vaccines in early childhood can give protection against many serious diseases.
Sometimes more than one vaccine is given at a time, like the MMR triple vaccine against mumps, measles and rubella.
How often do we get given vaccinations and why?
Sometimes vaccine boosters are needed, because the immune response ‘memory’ weakens over time. Anti-tetanus injections may need to be repeated every ten years.
What are antibiotics?
Antibiotics are substances that kill bacteria or stop their growth.
What do antibodies not work against and why?
They do not work against viruses: it is difficult to develop drugs that kill viruses without also damaging the body’s tissues.
Give some examples of how antibiotics work.
Antibiotic How it works Penicillin Breaks down cell walls. Erythromycin Stops protein synthesis. Neomycin Stops protein synthesis. Vancomycin Stops protein synthesis. Ciprofloxacin Stops DNA replication.
When was penicillin discovered and by who?
The first antibiotic - penicillin - was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming.
How was penicillin discovered?
Alexander Fleming noticed that some bacteria he had left in a Petri dish had been killed by naturally occurring penicillin mould.
Why do some bacterial cells develop resistance against antibiotics? How do they survive?
This happens because of natural selection. In a large population of bacteria, there may be some cells that are not affected by the antibiotic.
These cells survive and reproduce, producing even more bacteria that are not affected by the antibiotic.
What does MRSA stand for?
MRSA is methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. It is very dangerous because it is resistant to most antibiotics.
Why is it important that we don’t over use antibodies?
It is important to avoid over-use of antibiotics, so we can slow down, or stop, the development of other strains of resistant bacteria.
What is a simple way to reduce the rick of infection?
One simple way to reduce the risk of infection is to maintain personal hygiene and to keep hospitals clean.
