Health
Senior 2 · English
Health
Lesson 1 of 4
24 min
In every village in Rwanda, community health workers help families prevent and recognise illness, and health centres treat thousands of patients every day. To understand health advice, read a medicine leaflet or explain what is wrong, you need clear English. Health passages also appear often in examinations.
This lesson sorts diseases into two big groups: those that spread from person to person, and those that do not. You will also learn the verbs and articles that go with the names of illnesses.
Paragraphs 1–3 are adapted from the Simple English Wikipedia article Infection, and paragraph 4 from the English Wikipedia article Non-communicable disease.
An infection happens when tiny living things that cause disease enter the body and multiply there. These disease-causing agents, called pathogens, include bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. An illness that results from an infection is called an infectious or communicable disease, because it can be passed from one person to another, or from an animal or insect to a person.
Some communicable diseases spread easily. A person with flu, a cold or measles can pass it on by coughing, sneezing or touching. Others need closer contact: HIV and hepatitis B, for example, pass through blood and other body fluids. Malaria is different again: it is carried from person to person by the bite of a mosquito.
People can prevent many of these diseases. Covering your mouth when you cough, washing your hands with soap, drinking clean water and cooking meat well all stop pathogens from spreading. Vaccination, also called immunisation, prepares the body to fight a disease before the disease arrives. Polio, tetanus and whooping cough can all be prevented in this way, and one disease, smallpox, has been removed from the world completely.
A non-communicable disease (NCD) cannot pass directly from one person to another. Most NCDs develop slowly and last a long time; they are chronic. The four main NCDs are diseases of the heart and blood vessels, cancers, long-term lung diseases such as asthma, and diabetes. Together, NCDs cause more deaths in the world than all other kinds of illness. A person's risk rises with tobacco use, unhealthy food, too little physical activity and harmful use of alcohol, so the way we live matters.
What is a pathogen? Give two examples.
A living thing that causes disease, for example bacteria and viruses (also fungi and parasites).
How is malaria's way of spreading different from that of flu?
Flu passes directly between people through coughing, sneezing or touching. Malaria is carried from person to person by a mosquito bite.
Name two habits that increase the risk of an NCD.
Any two of: using tobacco, eating unhealthy food, too little physical activity, harmful use of alcohol.
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| communicable / infectious (adj) | able to pass from one person or animal to another |
| contagious (adj) | spreading very easily by contact, e.g. measles |
| pathogen (n) | a living thing, such as a virus or bacterium, that causes disease |
| transmit (v) | to pass a disease from one person to another |
| chronic (adj) | lasting a long time, often for life |
| vaccination / immunisation (n) | giving a vaccine so the body can fight a disease |
| symptom (n) | a change in the body that shows you are ill, e.g. fever |
| risk factor (n) | something that makes a disease more likely |
Names of illnesses follow three patterns. Learn them as whole phrases.
| With a | No article | Either |
|---|---|---|
| a cold, a cough, a fever, a headache, a sore throat, a rash | malaria, diabetes, cancer, asthma, measles, cholera | flu / the flu |
Worked example. Correct this sentence: Keza has a malaria and the headache.
Step 1: malaria is a disease name with no article → has malaria.
Step 2: headache is a countable symptom and it is mentioned for the first time → a headache.
Answer: Keza has malaria and a headache.
You catch only communicable diseases. He caught diabetes is wrong, because diabetes does not pass from person to person.
Write a paragraph of 70–90 words comparing communicable and non-communicable diseases. Use whereas or while to show contrast, and include at least two collocations from the grammar box.
Model answer
Communicable diseases are caused by pathogens and can be transmitted from one person to another, whereas non-communicable diseases cannot. For example, a child can catch measles from a classmate, but nobody catches diabetes. Communicable diseases such as flu often come quickly and go away within days, while many NCDs are chronic and last for life. The two groups are prevented in different ways: we are vaccinated against many infections, but we reduce the risk of NCDs by eating well, exercising and avoiding tobacco.
Tip
Can you catch it from a friend? Yes → communicable (flu, measles, malaria through a mosquito). No → non-communicable (diabetes, cancer, asthma).
Only communicable diseases are caught. Chronic diseases are suffered from.
Sort into communicable and non-communicable: measles, diabetes, cholera, asthma, flu, cancer.
Solution: Communicable: measles, cholera, flu. Non-communicable: diabetes, asthma, cancer.
Add an article only where needed: Mugisha has ___ sore throat, and his grandmother has ___ diabetes.
Solution: Mugisha has a sore throat, and his grandmother has diabetes (no article). Symptoms like a sore throat take a; disease names like diabetes take no article.
Choose the correct verb: Children are (vaccinated against / caught / suffered from) polio.
Solution: vaccinated against. Vaccination protects before the disease comes.
Correct the mistake: My aunt caught high blood pressure last year.
Solution: My aunt was diagnosed with high blood pressure last year. High blood pressure is not communicable, so it cannot be caught.
Give the word from the reading that means "lasting a long time".
Solution: chronic.
Remember
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
