Approaches to prevention and treatment Flashcards
All 7 cards in this deck
When was the NHS set up, and what did it provide?
- Treatment from GPs and hospitals funded by taxes and free at the point of delivery, so accessible to all.
What is a 'magic bullet'?
A chemical drug that kills the specific microbe causing a disease without harming the rest of the body.
e.g. Salvarsan 606 (1909), developed by Ehrlich's team to treat syphilis.Give two examples of high-tech surgical treatment in modern hospitals.
Organ transplants and keyhole (or robotic) surgery.
Name two diseases targeted by mass vaccination programmes in Britain since 1900.
Diphtheria (from the 1940s) and polio (from the 1950s); also measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), HPV and Covid-19.
Name two government lifestyle campaigns used to prevent illness in modern Britain.
The '5 a day' healthy eating campaign and anti-smoking / stop smoking campaigns.
What was the second magic bullet, who developed it, and when?
Prontosil, developed by Gerhard Domagk in 1932. It cured some types of blood poisoning, and its active ingredient (a sulphonamide) was later used against pneumonia.
Why have antibiotic-resistant bacteria become a problem?
Overuse of antibiotics has allowed bacteria to evolve resistance (e.g. MRSA), so some infections are now hard to treat.