The collective level of immunity to a disease within a population or community i
ID: 132241 • Letter: T
Question
The collective level of immunity to a disease within a population or community is described as herd immunity Understanding herd immunity is critical for understanding both why many infectious diseases are cyclical and why adherence to recommended immunizations is important for the health of a community - Infected - Immune 10% of population is immune. 50% of population is immune. 90% of population is immune. Time 0 Time 0 Time Figure 15.13 Herd Immunity (1) Look at panel A. Rank the relative risk of the susceptible individuals to acquire the disease from the infected individual as high, intermediate, or low (2) Look at panel B. Rank the relative risk of the susceptible individuals to acquire the disease from the infected individual as high, intermediate, or lovw a. If your answer for panel (b) was different than that for (a), why did your answer change? (3) Look at panel C. Rank the relative risk of the susceptible individuals to acquire the disease from the infected individual as high, intermediate, or low a. If your answer for panel (c) was different than that for (a) and (b), why did your answer change? (4) Certain people (the elderly, immunocompromised individuals, infants) within a population cannot be immunized against some diseases. Compare the situation depicted in (a) with that depicted in (c). In which situation would those individuals that could not be immune be most protected?Explanation / Answer
(1) The risk of acquiring a disease in panel A, is high.
In panel 1 majority population is susceptible to the disease which increases the chances of a person to acquire that disease and therefore has highest number of reported cases of the affected individual.
(2) In panel B, risk is intermediate.
This is because in panel B, 50% of individuals are immunized, which decreases the chances of susceptible individual to come in contact with an affected one.
This leads to decrease in chances of a susceptible indiviual to acquire that disease and hence less cases than panel A.
(3) In panel C the risk is low, because of herd community.
as 90% of population is immunized, chances of a susceptible individual to come in contact with an affected one is very low. Thus, chances of a susceptible indiviual to acquire that disease is also very low and hence least cases are reported in panel C.
(4) If there is a situation in which an indiviual cannot get immunization via regular methods, they will be most secure in panel C.
reason for this is as follows:
In panel A 90 % are non-immunized whereas in panel C only 10% are non-immunized individuals, which indicated that chances of coming in contact with affected one in more in panel A and thus, risk chances are also high.
whereas in panel C an indiviual who cannot be immunized against a disease can be protected due to the less probability of that indiviual to get in contact with an affected one as 90% are immunized in panel C.