12.7 Preventing and Treating disease

What’s active immunity?

Immunity developed after contacting pathogens inside the body and developing your own antibodies

What’s natural active immunity?

When you meet the pathogen by being infected

What’s artificial active immunity

Injection of live or attenuated pathogen

What is passive immunity?

Immunity provided by antibodies from outside the body

What’s natural passive immunity?

Antibodies from a mother in breast milk or across the placenta

What is passive artificial immunity?

Injection of antibodies

How are some fatal disease treated?

Antibodies are formed in one individual or animal which are extracted then injected into the bloodstream of another individual which gives temporary immunity. Examples are rabies and tetanus

What may a vaccine contain?

Killed or inactivated bacteria/virus. Or attenuated (weakened) or genetically engineered

What is an epidemic?

When a communicable disease spreads rapidly to a lot of people at a local level

What is a pandemic?

When the same disease spreads rapidly across countries or continents

What is herd immunity?

When a significant percentage of the population are vaccinated giving protection to those who do not have immunity

What are disease that cannot be prevented by vaccine?

• malaria: it’s invasive and hides inside RBC so it protected by self antigens from the immune system

• HIV: it enters macrophage and T helper cells so it has disabled the immune system itself

Example of sources of medicine?

Penicillin and designing drugs using complex computer programmes

Why is biodiversity being destroyed a problem?

Because plants, animal and microorganisms which could give us the key to a life saving drug

What is pharmacogenetics?

Personalised medicine which works with your individual combination of generic and disease

What is nanotechnology?

A type of synthetic biology where tiny non natural particles are used for biological purpose

What’s increasing antibiotic resistance?

High prescription of antibiotics, antibiotics overuse in farming

How to reduce antibiotic resistance?

Complete the full curse of antibiotics to reduce the risk, minimise use of antibiotics and good hygiene in hospitals