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7.2 explain how one of the following strategies has controlled and/or prevented disease: public health programs pesticides genetic engineering to produce disease resistant plants and animals
explain how one of the following strategies has controlled and/or prevented disease:
- public health programs
- pesticides
- genetic engineering to produce disease resistant plants and animals
Public health programs
- These provide quarantine, sanitation, safe drinking water and immunisation. They are also responsible for advertising campaigns that target cancer and AIDS. Examples of successful health campaigns are the Slip! Slop! Slap! skin cancer advertisements, the advertisements that show various dieases that can be caused by smoking and the Grim Reaper series for education about AIDS.
Pesticides
- Pesticides, such as DDT, have been used to destroy mosquitoes, which are the vectors of some diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever.
A good example of a strategy to control or prevent disease is the pesticide control of the disease malaria. Adult mosquitoes can be destroyed by chemicals such as DDT, dieldrin, or by safer chemicals, such as pyrethrums. In 1956, the World Health Organisation was responsible for a major campaign using a residual form of DDT. DDT has been banned in many countries of the world because of its harmful ecological effects, but it is still used for mosquito eradication in malarial areas. This has rid many areas of the world from malaria but has unfortunately not reduced it globally and malaria is still a major killer of children today. Many areas have DDT-resistant mosquitos. Other pesticides, such as organophosphates and pyrethrums, have become popular. In some areas, bed nets have been sprayed with pyrethrums and have been found to be effective in controlling mosquitoes.
Genetic engineering to produce disease resistant plants and animals
- Genetically engineered plants can now kill their own pests because of the insertion of a gene from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Bt cotton was the first genetically engineered crop grown in Australia. The bacteria contain a gene that produces chemicals that kill certain insects. By taking that gene from the bacteria and inserting into the genome of plants, the plants now produce the chemical that will kill insect pests.