Why Do We Fall ill Test - 8

Kala-azar or black fever or Dumdum fever is dangerous disease caused by protozoa-Leishmania (genus of trypanosomes). Kala-azar is the most severe form of leishmaniasis. Plasmodium causes malaria.

Infectious diseases spread from an infected person to a healthy person by air directly or as droplets, by intimate contact during sexual intercourse, and through vectors and carriers. Vaccination of diseases is not a cause for the spread of infectious disease.

The disease that cannot be transmitted from an infected individual to a healthy individual is called a non-communicable disease. Allergy is non-communicable.

Communicable diseases can be communicated i.e. they move from an infected person to someone else. Malaria, diarrhoea and tuberculosis (TB) are communicable diseases.

Diseases are classified as acute or chronic, depending on their duration. The disease that begins abruptly and last only for a short duration is known as an acute disease. Common cold is the most common acute disease. Chronic and congenital diseases last for long duration.

Matched responses are as follows: Hepatitis targets the liver. Japanese encephalitis targets the brain. Dengue leads to a drop in platelets. Fungal diseases affect the skin.

Matched responses are as follows. Diseases are classified as acute or chronic, depending on their duration. Acute diseases such as common cold last only for a short duration. Chronic diseases last for a long duration. A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe. Antibiotics block the biochemical pathways that are used by microbes for the synthesis of substances/respiration, without affecting the biochemical pathways of human beings.

BCG stands for Bacillus Calmette Guerin. This vaccine prevents persons from tuberculosis (TB). The BCG vaccine was first used medically in 1921. It was developed in 1908 by Albert Calmette, a French physician and bacteriologist, and his assistant and later colleague, Camille Guérin, a veterinarian, who worked at the Institut Pasteur de Lille (Lille, France).

Rabies is mostly transmitted to human beings through the saliva of infected animals like rabid dogs and cats. Rabies is a viral disease caused by rabies virus that causes inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals. The virus enters the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and then travels along the nerves towards the central nervous system (CNS).

Infected bats, monkeys, raccoons, foxes, skunks, cattle, wolves, dogs or cats provide the greatest risk to humans. Small rodents such as squirrels, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rats, and mice and lagomorphs like rabbits and hares are almost never found to be infected with rabies and are not known to transmit rabies to humans.

The patient suffering from rabies in later stage develops a condition called hydrophobia in which patient fears from water. Hydrophobia (fear of water) is the historic name for rabies. It refers to a set of symptoms in the later stages of an infection in which the person has difficulty swallowing, shows panic when presented with liquids to drink, and cannot quench his or her thirst. Any mammal infected with the virus may demonstrate hydrophobia.

Diarrhoea is caused by bacterium salmonella along with Escherichia coli. Abnormally frequent discharge of semi-solid or fluid faeces occurs during Diarrhoea. 

Wuchereria bancrofti is a human parasitic roundworm that is the major cause of lymphatic filariasis (skin swelling).