Briefly introduce early ideas of how disease spreads and why these ideas came about. Include a short discussion of the ways that people attempted to prevent the spread of disease.

Unit 14 Infection and Immunity

Disease has been part of the human story since the dawn of time. The earliest known disease that we have evidence for is leprosy, which has been found in skeletons dating back 4000 years. Smallpox is nearly as old and has been found in ancient Egyptian mummies dating as far back as 1350BCE.

Thanks to modern medicine most diseases are no longer deadly. Leprosy, once thought to be a result of sinful behaviour, is now known to be caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae and is spread by inhalation of droplets from coughing and sneezing. It is easily treated with antibiotics and is now very rare indeed. Smallpox, variola virus, was once the deadliest disease in the world. It was estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence. It has now been completely eradicated by a global vaccination program, with the last smallpox case anywhere in the world occurring in 1979.

Your task is to produce an illustrated report that not only demonstrates your understanding of diseases, how they spread and how we recover from them, but also charts some of the key turning points in medical discovery.

Your report must include the following sections.

SECTION ONE

This section covers the development of modern medicine.

Briefly introduce early ideas of how disease spreads and why these ideas came about. Include a short discussion of the ways that people attempted to prevent the spread of disease.Describe how Dr Ignaz Semmelweis and Dr Robert Koch contributed to the idea of Germ Theory and their contributions to modern healthcare practices.Describe the contribution of Dr John Snow to the development of epidemiology, the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health.Explain the history of the development of vaccination, including the contributions of Dr Edward Jenner and Dr Louis Pasteur.

You should use images and diagrams to support your commentary where appropriate.

SECTION TWO

Show that you understand the cause and transmission of different pathogens by describing the structure of a range pathogens, including bacteria and viruses, and compare them to eukaryotic cells.

Identify and briefly describe range of contagious diseases with different modes of transmission and explain how they enter the human body. Explain how each of these causes disease and include the symptoms.

You should use images and diagrams to support your commentary where appropriate.

SECTION THREE

Show that you understand how the human body responds to infection by: -Describing the range of first line defences and non-specific responses to infection including fever.Explaining the roles of the different types of white blood cells.Explaining the mechanism of the specific immune response and how it can significantly reduce the chances of you catching the same disease twice.

You should use images and diagrams to support your commentary where appropriate.

SECTION FOUR

Show that you understand how vaccinations can prevent an infection through,

Describing the different types of vaccine and how they work.Explaining how vaccination increases the chance that you will become immune to a pathogen and how this can reduce the spread of a disease.

You should use images and diagrams to support your commentary where appropriate.

SECTION FIVE

Show that you understand how antibiotics work and their limitations through,

Explaining what antibiotics are and, briefly, how they were discovered.Describing the mechanism of action of antibiotics and explain why they only work on bacteria and no other pathogens.Explaining how bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics and the consequences of this for public health.

Guidance

The report should be written using the recommended structure and format for an illustrated report as outlined in the study materials for the Academic Writing Skills unit.

Relevant theory must be referenced where appropriate and you must provide a references list and bibliography.

Your report should also contain appropriate drawings and diagrams to support your commentary. If these are taken from published sources, they must be cited and referenced accordingly.

The report should be a maximum of 3,000 words in length