SERIOUS ILLNESSES AND THEIR TREATMENT

1. Read the text below and ponder on “Clean living – it’s enough to make you ill”.

In Britain, it is believed that asthma, which has doubled in children in the last 25 years, is due to air pollution. Certainly, the symptoms of wheezing and shortness of breath can be made worse by exposure to traffic fumes, however, the risk of getting asthma in the first place is highest in the least polluted parts of the country. Seeing air pollution as a cause of asthma would seem to be common sense, but in fact, there is no relationship between the two. In our modern hygienic world, we, and particularly children, are no longer exposed to the bacteria that helped build the immune system in previous generations.

As with asthma, there are two other allergic conditions – eczema and hay fever – that are twice as common as they were 25 years ago. The three conditions run in families and tend to be “ailments of the advantaged”. In other words, they occur more frequently in children born in professional households and are more likely in small rather than large families, where there tend to be fewer germs being passed from one sibling to another. The rise in these conditions since the war years coincides exactly with the sharp decline in major childhood diseases, like polio, diphtheria, whooping cough and measles. They are thus presumably the “price” that has to be paid for modern medicines and better social conditions.

1. Read this extract from a leaflet about food safety and answer the questions:

How is Salmonella different from other bacteria?

How is Staphylococcus different from other bacteria?

How does refrigeration help to reduce the risk of food poisoning?

How did the law change in 1995?

What is important to remember about chilled and frozen foods?

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

1. Listen again and write down the answers:

What illness kills more people than meningitis?

In which part of the world does the ebola virus occur?

How many people died of ebola in 1976?

When was the last time that anyone died from ebola?

What is the first symptom of an ebola virus infection?

What organs are destroyed by the virus?

Roughly what percentage of its victims die from ebola?

What can be used to cure or treat it?

What is the most likely way that the ebola virus is spread?

What animal is immune to ebola?

3. Render the text.

Date: 2015-01-12; view: 1959