Public health strategies aimed at the primary prevention of infectious disease seek to prevent new cases of infection from occurring by interrupting the transmission of pathogens to susceptible human hosts, or increasing their resistance to infection.
Vaccination operates at the level of primary prevention:
This protective effect is known as herd immunity, and the herd immunity level is reached when the ratio of immune-to-non-immune individuals is high enough to stop the infection circulating in the population because there are so few susceptible individuals.
Educating mothers about the benefits of breast feeding their babies exclusively for the first six months is another example of a primary prevention strategy. Breast feeding is promoted not only for its nutritional benefits but also to protect breast-fed infants against the pathogens that can contaminate feeding bottles, animal milk and infant formula prepared with unsafe water. Breast milk also contains maternal antibodies, so it provides babies with passive immunity against enteric pathogens.
Suggest some other examples of public health interventions aimed at the primary prevention of infectious disease.
You might have thought of many other examples in addition to our suggestions below.
You will see as this course progresses that many other examples of public health interventions operate at the primary prevention level.
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