5 Defending ourselves against infectious disease

What are pathogens?

How fast do bacteria and viruses reproduce inside the body?

What does bacteria pproduce that make us feel ill?

How do viruses cause damage?

How do white blood cells help to defend against pathogens?

Why does the immune system produce specific antibodies?

What does this lead to?

What can dead or inactivated pathogens stimulate?

What is reduced if a large proportion of the population is immune to a pathogen?

How can people be immunised against a disease?

What do vaccines do?

Why do vaccines make the person immune to further infections by the micro-organism?

What is the MMR vaccine?

What are the advantages of being vaccinated?

What are the disadvantages of being vaccinated?

Some medicines, including painkillers, help to relieve the symptoms of infectious disease. Do they kill the pathogens?

What are antibiotics?

Give an example of an antibiotic

Can antibiotics kill viral pathogens?

Why is it difficult to develop drugs that kill viruses?

What do mutations of pathogens produce?

What do individual resistant pathogens do?

What may no longer be effective against a new resistant strain of the pathogen?

What do pathogens do to produce resistant strains?

What have strains of bacteria developed a resistance to?

Give an example of a resistant strain of bacteria

What has increased the rate of development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria?

What action has been taken in order to slow down the rate of development of resistant strains?

What does the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria necessitate?

What are uncontaminated cultures of micro-organisms required for?

How is this experiment kept sterile?

Why is the lid of the Petri dish secured with adhesive tape?

Why is the Petri dish stored upside down?

In school and college laboratories, what is the maximum temperature a culture should be stored in?

What is the effect of this?

In industrial conditions, what can higher temperatures produce?