Fighting Disease

Question 1

What are bacteria?

Answer 1

Very small cells which reproduce rapidly inside your body

Question 2

How do bacteria make you feel ill?

Answer 2

By damaging your cells and producing toxins

Question 3

What are viruses?

Answer 3

Viruses are not cells, they’re very tiny

Question 4

How do viruses make you feel ill?

Answer 4

By replicating themselves inside your body cells which causes the new viruses to be released; the cell damage is what makes you feel ill

Question 5

What are your body’s defence system?

Answer 5

Skin, hairs and mucus

Question 6

How does your body’s defence system stop you from getting ill?

Answer 6

They try to prevent microorganism through cuts as platelets help the blood clot quickly to seal wounds

Question 7

What happens if microorganisms make it past your defence system?

Answer 7

Your immune system kicks in, the most important part is the white blood cell

Question 8

How does the white blood cell fight diseases?

Answer 8

1. Engulfing foreign cells and digesting them
2. Producing antibodies specific to the antigens which fit onto the antigens and kill them
3. Producing antitoxins

Question 9

What’s a vaccination?

Answer 9

A small amount of dead or inactive microorganisms which carry antigens causing your body to produce antibodies

Question 10

What are the pros of vaccinations?

Answer 10

• help control lots of contagious diseases which were common
• big outbreaks of disease (epidemics) can be prevented as a large number of people have had the vaccination and therefor fewer people will be infected

Question 11

What are the cons of vaccinations?

Answer 11

• they don’t always work

* you can have a bad reaction

Question 12

What do painkillers do?

Answer 12

Painkillers don’t tackle the cause of the disease they just help to reduce the symptoms

Question 13

What do antibiotics do?

Answer 13

They kill the bacteria without killing your body cells, different antibiotics kill different bacteria

Question 14

How can bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?

Answer 14

• they mutate and become resistant
• if you have an infection some bacteria may be resistant to the antibiotics
• when you treat infection only non resistant bacteria will be killed
• resistant bacteria will survive and reproduce (natural selection)
• this could cause serious infection which can’t be treated

Question 15

How did Semmelweis cut deaths?

Answer 15

• he noticed women were dying from puerperal fever
• he believed doctors were spreading disease on their unwashed hands
• telling doctors to wash their hands he cut the death rate from 12% to 2%

Question 16

What’s a pandemic?

Answer 16

When a disease spreads across the world