Treatment or Prevention

• Prevention is better than cure
• How to prevent infections
  • By preventing exposure
  • Boosting the immune system
  • Vaccination

Prevention is Better Than Cure

Whenever a person suffers from infection, doctor gives suitable medicines to get rid of infection.

But treating the infection has certain limitations which are as follows:

• An infection hampers the routine activity of a person for a few or many days. This often results in loss of work for that person. This can also result in loss of earning for the person.
• An infection may result in short term or long term debility.
• Treating a disease involves many costs; like cost of medicine, fees of doctor, cost of hospital stay, etc.
• An infected person may become a source of infection for many other persons.

Hence, prevention is always better than cure. Prevention can help in ruling out most of the above costs which are associated with a disease.

How to Prevent Infections

By Preventing Exposure

Many diseases can be prevented by preventing the exposure against microbes.

Air borne disease can be prevented by some simple measures. If you are suffering from common cold then you should cover your face while sneezing or coughing. In case of a flu scare in the city, you should wear a face mask while going to a public place or traveling by public transport.

Water borne disease can be prevented by avoiding the use of contaminated water. You should always carry drinking water from home. If that is not possible then you should buy bottled water for drinking. Never buy food from those vendors who do not keep their food items covered. Don’t eat stale or spoiled food items.

Vector borne diseases can be prevented by preventing the breeding of vectors. If we can prevent mosquitoes from breeding around us, we can easily prevent malaria and dengue. Additionally, we should use mosquito repellants to prevent mosquito bite.

Pet dogs should be vaccinated against rabies. We should be careful of stray dogs as some of them may be infected with rabies.

We should not share clothes with a person who may be suffering from skin disease.

For preventing AIDS and hepatitis B, we should always use disposable syringe.

Boosting the Immune System

Whenever a pathogen enters our body, our immune system fights against that. We suffer from an infectious disease only when the microbes overpower our immune system. So, strengthening the immune system can help in preventing many diseases. This can be achieved by eating well balanced and nutritious diet. Our food should include all the necessary nutrients as well as vitamins and minerals.

The above methods of prevention are called general ways of prevention because they are not directed against any particular disease. But when a prevention method is directed against a particular disease, it is called the specific way of prevention. Vaccination comes under this category.

Vaccination

Vaccination is based on the principle that our body learns to fight against a certain microbe when the microbe attacks our body for the first time. Vaccines are made from dead or weak strains of a microbe. Vaccine is inoculated in the body in appropriate dose. After vaccination, the body learns to fight with that microbe. As a result, our body easily wards off any future onslaught of that microbe. Many diseases can be prevented by vaccines.

Small Pox

Small pox was a deadly disease in the nineteenth century. Edward Jenner was he scientist who developed vaccine against small pox.

Now-a-days, vaccines are available for many diseases. Example: Small pox, polio, whooping cough, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, Hepatitis B, rabies, etc.

Quiz

• Prev
• Disease
• Prevention Treatment
• NCERT Solution
• Extra Questions
• Next