• Question: what is the deadlyest dieseas you have ever seen or treated .are you somebody who treats deiseses or do you just study them

    Asked by anon-226526 on 25 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Reka Nagy

      Reka Nagy answered on 21 Nov 2019:

      Depends how you define deadly – there’s some infectious diseases that can be sudden-onset and lead to death very quickly if not treated [if treatment exists].

      Then there are some non-infectious diseases that some people get, some with no treatment/cure, that lead to you progressively getting worse and worse over a long time [often several years], such that you start being unable to be self-reliant, until your body shuts down completely. These are also deadly, but not quite in the same way.

      Some of the diseases I’ve studies belong to this latter type. Often, the cause for these diseases is not known, or not completely understood, and because we don’t know what causes it, we also often can’t develop useful treatments for that disease. This is why the role of researchers studying a disease is just as important as the role of the medical staff applying the treatment!

    • Photo: Hayley Pincott

      Hayley Pincott answered on 22 Nov 2019:

      I work in a hospital lab where we help to diagnose diseases. In my particular area I help to diagnose cancer. I work in an Oral Pathology lab in the University Dental Hospital in Cardiff and this is the only unit of its kind in Wales and because of this we get to see and hear about some really interesting cases. Sadly head and neck cancers are on the increase so it’s really important to make good and healthy lifestyle choices to reduce your chances, like not smoking, limit you alcohol intake and if possible have the HPV vaccine.

      So to answer your question I deal with a disease that can be very deadly however with the incredible research that is going on, cancer is becoming more understood and in some cases is becoming less deadly.

    • Photo: Cheryl Williams

      Cheryl Williams answered on 24 Nov 2019:

      I don’t treat diseases as such. I analyse samples from patients such as poo, see and blood to see if there are bacteria or viruses in there that are making somebody ill. This work provides the doctors with the information that will help them to treat the disease, such as which antibiotics to use.
      I have seen many deadly diseases such as typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and necrotising fasciitis which is also known as flesh-eating bacteria. All of these diseases can kill a person if it is not diagnosed and treated quickly enough.

    • Photo: Hannah Tanner

      Hannah Tanner answered on 10 Mar 2020:

      I work in a microbiology lab:
      According to the Worlds Health Organisation, the three types of infections that kill the most people in the world are:
      – Lower respiratory infections (like pneumonia)
      – Diarrhea (Which can be cause by various different micro-organisms)
      – Tuberculosis
      https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death

      In the lab we regularly diagnose people with those diseases. In the UK people are less likely to die from them because we are very lucky to have a very good free healthcare system.

    • Photo: Hannah Tanner

      Hannah Tanner answered on 10 Mar 2020:

      I work in a microbiology lab:
      According to the World Health Organisation, the three types of infections that kill the most people in the world are:
      – Lower respiratory infections (like pneumonia)
      – Diarrhea (Which can be cause by various different micro-organisms)
      – Tuberculosis
      https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
      In the lab we regularly diagnose people with those diseases. In the UK people are less likely to die from them because we are very lucky to have a very good free healthcare system.

Comments