Write notes on the following :
(a) Dehydration (b) Vaccination
(a) Dehydration is the loss of water along with minerals, salts and glucose from the body due to perspiration, severe diarrhoea or vomiting. When the percentage of water inside the body decreases, the person should be given Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS). This helps to absorb water along with salt and glucose, and gives immediate relief. The person should be given medical treatment to avoid possible serious outcomes.
(b) Vaccination may be defined as protection of the body from communicable diseases by the administration of some weakened agents that mimic the microbe. The agent can be a suspension of killed or attenuated microbes, or a substance that mimics the disease−causing microbes. This is known as a vaccine.
Basis of vaccination: Vaccination is based on specific ways of defence provided by the immune system of a person. If we infect the body of a person with something that mimics the microbe, then the immune system remembers it, and prevents the actual disease−causing microbe from causing any disease. This forms the basis of vaccination. Vaccines are available against many diseases like tetanus, polio, measles, hepatitis B, whooping cough, yellow fever etc.