Infectious Diseases 94065 Spreading and Essay

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These germs "are constantly mutating to breach your immune system's defenses" ("Germs" 2007). Once these germs breach the immune system, they multiply, resulting in the second link of spreading infectious diseases. As Germs multiply and breach the immune system, a person becomes sick.

The third and final step in the chain of spreading infectious diseases from person to person deals with that sickness. Once a person comes into contact with a germ, and the germ enters the body, multiplies, and attacks the body, the immune system "springs into action," using white blood cells, antibodies, and other methods of fighting that disease. These actions often have exteriorly obvious symptoms, such as sneezing and coughing ("Germs" 2007). At the end of this third link, the infectious disease has generally been vanquishd by the immune system.

While this chain of events suggests that spreading infectious diseases from person to person occurs relatively easily, preventing these diseases can be just as simple. Hand washing is an important step in fighting the spread of disease in the first link. If a person has touched another with a disease though direct contact or touched something that has been contaminated by a person with a disease through indirect contact, hand washing will decrease the chance of the germs becoming absorbed into the body. Vaccination is a similarly powerful second link preventative step, because it makes it less likely that one will contract an infectious disease once contact has already occurred.
Finally, in the third link of person-to-person spreading of infectious diseases one already has the infectious disease, but the infected person can reduce the chances of others contacting the disease by staying at home ("Infectious Diseases: How they spread, how to stop them" 2007). Thus, while infectious diseases are easy to spread, they are also easy to prevent by limiting the amount of contact one has with an infected person.

References

Environmental changes are spreading infectious diseases -- UN study. (2005). United

Nations News Center. Retrieved 6 September 2008 at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsid=13407&cr=infectious&cr1=diseases

Germs: Understand and protect against bacteria, viruses, and infection. (2007). Mayo

Clinic. Retrieved 6 September 2008 at http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/germs/ID00002

Infectious diseases: How they spread, how to stop them. (2007). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved September 2008 at http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/infectious-disease/ID00004.....

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