Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the…
Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.
Passage:
A social and physical environment riddled with poverty, inequities, unhygienic and insanitary conditions generates the risk of infectious diseases. Hygiene has different levels: personal, domestic and community hygiene. There is no doubt that personal cleanliness brings down the rate of infectious diseases. But the entry of the market into this domain has created a false sense of security that gets conditioned and reinforced by the onslaught of advertisements. Experience in Western Europe shows that along with personal hygiene, general improvements in environmental conditions and components like clean water, sanitation and food security have brought down infant/child death/infections rates considerably. The obsession with hand hygiene also brings in the persisting influence of the market on personal health, overriding or marginalizing the negative impact on ecology and the emergence of resistant germs.
On the basis of the passage given above, the following assumptions have been made:
1. People who are obsessed with personal hygiene tend to ignore the community hygiene.
2. Emergence of multi-drug resistant germs can be prevented by personal cleanliness.
3. Entry of the market in the domain of hygiene increases the risk of infectious diseases.
4. Scientific and micro-level interventions are not sufficient to bring down the burden of infectious diseases.
5. It is community hygiene implemented through public health measures that is really effective in the battle against infectious diseases.
Which of the above assumptions are valid?
1 and 2 only
3 and 4 only
4 and 5 only
1, 2 and 4 only
Solution
Statement 1 is an extreme statement not established. Statement 2 is invalid: resistant germs cannot be prevented by mere personal hygiene. Statement 3 is invalid: market created a false sense of security, but not a per se increase in disease risk. Statement 4 is valid: scientific/micro-level interventions alone are not sufficient. Statement 5 is valid: Western Europe's experience shows community hygiene through public measures is effective. Hence 4 and 5.