Question

Write about various preventive measures to curb infectious diseases.

Answer 1

There are two ways of prevention of infectious diseases:
(1) General ways of prevention of infectious diseases:
(i) Sanitation : Garbage heaps, polluted water, foods exposed to dust and flies are the chief sources of disease-causing organisms. Sanitary surroundings can prevent spread of diseases.
(ii) Eradication of vectors : Vector-borne infections can be prevented by providing clean environments. The breeding places of vectors should be destroyed and adult vectors killed by suitable methods.
(iii) Sterilization : Patient's surroundings and articles of use should be sterilized. Soap, phenyl, dettol, and antiseptic lotion may be used wherever necessary.
(iv) Isolation : A person suffering from an infectious disease should be kept in isolation so that others do not catch infection from him.
(v) Education : People should be educated about the infectious diseases so that they may protect themselves against such infections.
(vi) Proper and sufficient food : Availability of proper (nutritious) and sufficient food to everyone will make people healthy to resist infections.
(2) Specific ways of prevention of infectious diseases : They relate to a peculiar property of the immune system that usually fights off microbial infections. The body's immune system responds against the infectious microbe that invades the body for the first time. The immune system then remembers it specifically. Therefore, when the particular microbe invades the same person next time, the immune system immediately responds with greater vigour and eliminates the infection more quickly than the first time. This is the basis of the principle of immunisation.