Biology homework-2

Chapter – WHY DO WE FALL ILL?

Q1.a) Write the full form of HIV & AIDS.

Ans. The full form of
HIV is ……..
H-human
I-immunodeficiency
V-virus
AIDS is……
A-acquired
I-immuno
D-deficiency
S-syndrome

b) What does HIV attacks?

Ans. HIV attacks the immune system by killing special type of WBC.

c) How does AIDS spread?

Ans. AIDS spreads;-
• Through sexual contact with infected person.
• Through blood to blood contact with infected people
• From an infected mother to her baby during pregnancy or through breast
feeding.

Q2. What are the 2 ways of treating an infectious disease?

Ans There are 2 ways to treat an infectious disease;-
• Treatment that reduces the symptoms. [gives relief]
• Treatment that involves killing the disease causing microbes present in the body.
[actually cures]
Q3. Explain symptom-directed treatment.
Ans Taking bed rest to conserve our energy so more energy is available to focus on
healing. Taking treatment to reduce symptoms which are usually because of
inflammation, like reducing fever, reducing pain or loose motions. But with this kind of
treatment, the disease will not be cured.

Q4. How can the pathogens be killed?

Ans Some medicines can kill microbes by blocking biochemical pathways specific to
them, e.g., Antibiotics are medicines which block bacterial pathways. Medicines which
can block protozoan pathways will kill protozoa present in the body. This kind of
treatment actually cures the disease.

Q5. How antibiotics kill bacteria?

Ans. Antibiotics kill bacteria by blocking a specific biochemical pathway which is
necessary for bacteria. For example, antibiotic penicillin blocks the biochemical pathway
used by bacteria to build cell wall. As a result, growing bacteria become unable to make
cell walls and die easily. All the different types of bacteria which make cell wall by using
this pathway can be killed by taking penicillin.

Q6. Why making anti-viral medicines is harder?

Ans. Viruses have few biochemical pathways of their own. They enter our cells and use
our machinery for their life processes. This means there are few virus specific targets to
aim at. Despite this limitation, some anti-viral drugs are available, like the one that
keeps HIV infection under control.

Q7.What is the limitations of treatment? Why is prevention better than cure?

Ans. Prevention is better than cure because-
• Once someone has a disease, their body functions are damaged and may never
recover completely.
• The treatment will take time, which means that someone suffering from a
disease is likely to be bedridden for sometime even if we can give proper
treatment.
• The person suffering from an infectious disease can serve as the source from
where the infection may spread to other people. This leads to the multiplication
of the above difficulties.
Q8. How can we prevent diseases?
Ans. There are 2 ways of preventing infectious disease-one general and one specific to
each disease.
General ways of preventing infectious diseases
By preventing exposure to infectious microbes- This can be done by knowing the means
of spread of the infectious agent i.e. air, water, vectors etc and maintaining public
hygiene to avoid exposure to them.
By having strong immunity- this will help our body to fight off pathogens in case of
exposure. But we can have strong immunity only if proper and sufficient food is
available to us.
Thus general principles of prevention of infectious diseases include;-
1. Maintaining public hygiene to prevent exposure to pathogens
2. Availability of proper and sufficient food for everyone so that everyone has
strong immunity.
Specific way of preventing a particular infectious disease
By fooling our immune system into believing that pathogens have entered our body
when in reality they have not. This is done through vaccination.

Q9. What is the basis of principle of immunization?

Ans. If a person had suffered from a particular infectious disease once, there was no
chance of suffering from it again. This happens because when the immune system
encounters a pathogen for the first time, it responds against it and then remembers it
specifically. So, if the same pathogen or its close relative enters the body again, the
immune system responds with even greater vigor and eliminates the infection faster
than the first time around. This is the basis of principle of immunization.

Q10. What is a vaccine?

Ans. A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a
particular infectious disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a
disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the
microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the
body's immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it, and to further
recognize and destroy any of the microorganisms associated with that agent that it may
encounter in the future