How to Answer Question Infectious Diseases Questions (Complete Guide)

This type of question evaluates analytical and critical thinking skills.

What This Question Is About

This question relates to question infectious diseases and requires a structured academic response.

How to Approach This Question

Use appropriate theories and support your answer with clear reasoning.

Key Explanation

This topic involves question infectious diseases. A strong answer should include explanation, application, and examples.

Original Question

Question 1 Infectious diseases can emerge through genetic, social and behavioural changes in the host and/or pathogen. Provide: (a) two examples of genetic changes, and (b) two examples of social or behavioural changes that have enabled new infectious diseases or new strains to emerge. In all four examples that you give, name the pathogens and explain how the changes led to disease emergence. Mandatory word limit: Write no more than two hundred words in total. (10 marks) Question 2 a.Name a medically relevant Gram-negative bacterium and the specific disease/illness that it causes (i.e. not a broad condition, such as gastroenteritis). (2 marks) b.Write brief notes on the composition and mechanism of action of one bacterial endotoxin and one bacterial exotoxin. In each case, name the toxin you are describing and the bacterium that it comes from. Mandatory word limit: no more than two hundred words in total. (6 marks) c.In addition to your reading of the module materials, this part of the question requires you to do some online/library research. Table 5.3 in Unit 5 Section 3 lists several clinically relevant antibiotics. Choose one named antibiotic from any of the first three drug classes listed (i.e. β-lactams, glycopeptide, or isoniazid), and research the effect your chosen antibiotic has on the bacterial cell wall. Briefly describe what you discover, and explain how this antibiotic helps to prevent or limit infection (mandatory word limit: no more than two hundred words in total). Present your sources of information in CTR Harvard format (i.e. with an ‘author−year’ citation within the text, and then the full reference for the source in a list at the end of your answer). The full reference list does not count towards the two hundred-word limit for this part of the question. (6 marks) d.Video 5.1 in Unit 5 describes six mechanisms by which bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics. Write brief notes (mandatory word limit: no more than two hundred words) on two such ways in which bacteria can become resistant to antibacterial drugs. Use specific examples of bacteria and drugs for each of your notes. You are not limited to discussing the same drug class you described in Part (c) of this question and you should use the module materials as your source of information. (6 marks) Question 3 Infectious agents need to be well adapted in order to: gain access to the host remain within the host avoid detection and elimination by the host reproduce within the host spread to new hosts. For each of the five activities listed above, make short notes to illustrate a variety of different ways in which infectious agents are adapted to their hosts. The best way to do this is to state what the adaptation is and then provide some named examples of species that use this adaptation. (Mandatory word limit: write no more than five hundred words in total.) Note: for each category you describe, up to 5 marks will be awarded for the detail of your explanation and for using a range of named infectious agents from across Block 1. Question 4 This question has a similar structure to the question in Part B of the end-of-module examination. A study was carried out during a cholera outbreak in a coastal town in El Salvador, Central America, in 1991. A total of 24 people infected with cholera (patients) were interviewed. For each patient interviewed, two healthy people (controls) of the same age, sex, and neighbourhood of residence as the patient were also interviewed. Rice is the staple diet, eaten every day in this community, and all patients and controls were questioned about foods and beverages (hot or cold drinks) they had consumed in the three days before the onset of illness. They were also asked about the sources of their drinking water, water handling practices, hygienic habits and whether they thought that they knew how to prevent cholera. Some results from the survey are shown in Table 1. Behaviour Cholera patients [and value as percentage of n, where n = 24] Healthy controls [and value as percentage of n, where n = 48] Percentage-points difference between patients and controls 1 Drank water from any source outside the home 17 [70.8%] 18 [37.5%] +33.3 2 Drank untreated water 19 33 3 Ate seafood prepared at home served raw or cold 8 4 4 Ate rice prepared at home 10 35 5 Ate food bought from street sellers 6 7 6 Drank beverages from street sellers 4 11 7 Claimed to know how to prevent cholera 10 34 8 Used soap always or almost always to wash hands 11 33 9 Drank from covered water vessel in the home 19 45 Note: you are only required to use simple percentages and basic comparisons to analyse these data. a.Either reproduce Table 1 yourself, or download the electronic version that is available from the link below. Calculate to one decimal place the percentages of patients and controls reporting each behaviour and show this value in brackets next to the original data point. Then complete the final column to show the difference in percentage values between the patients and controls for each behaviour. (The first row of the table has been completed for you as an example.) Insert your completed table in your TMA answer. (6 marks) b.Cholera is commonly associated with drinking dirty water. After comparing the risks of drinking water from all the sources listed in Table 1, do you conclude that drinking water is likely to be the source of infection in this outbreak and, if so, is it possible to identify the specific source? Explain your answer, quoting relevant data from your completed table to support your conclusions. (13 marks) c.If you were able to repeat this study, what two additional pieces of information would you ask for to help determine if there was a water-borne source of this cholera infection? Explain how each of these pieces of information could be of use in preventing further cases. (10 marks) d.Do any of the data in Table 1 suggest that education about cholera is effective in preventing the disease? Explain your answer quoting relevant data from your completed table to support your conclusions. (6 marks) e.Compare the risks of contracting cholera from eating seafood and from eating rice prepared at home, quoting relevant data. What explanation can you suggest for these differences? (10 marks) Mandatory word limit: write a maximum of two hundred words for each of Parts (b) to (e) (i.e. no more than eight hundred words in total for these four parts).

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