Quarter 4 Honors Project Check-in #2

Student Name: Chris Mills

1. With what signs/symptoms did your child present? Our child has been coughing and wheezing for one
week. These symptoms worsen at night. Our child also has a stuffy nose and their cough produces brownish
mucous. Symptoms may be related to child's history with asthma.

2. Fill out the chart below for each of the tests that you ordered for your baby. Feel free to add rows
if you ordered more than 3 tests.
Pathogen
Suspected

Tests Ordered for

Diagnosis

Results

What Do The
Results Imply?

Cryptococcus Gattii

Mucous sample

Negative (-)

The result implies that our

child does not have
Cryptococcus Gattii.

Influenza B

Flu test

Negative (-)

The result implies that our

child doesn't have Influenza

Aspergillus

Imaging test

Positive (+)

The result implies that our

child has Aspergillus.

Aspergillus

Mucous/sputum test

Positive (+)

The result implies that our

child has Aspergillus.

Aspergillus

Tissue/blood test

Positive (+)

The result implies that our

child has Aspergillus.

3. Based on the results of your tests, what diagnosis did you give to your baby? What difficulties did
you have with the diagnosis? What caused those difficulties? We diagnosed our baby with aspergillosis.
The difficulties we had with the diagnosis was that there were several diseases that couldve caused our babys
symptoms. The symptoms caused our difficulties because the other diseases showed the same symptoms as
aspergillus.

4. What is the treatment plan for your babys illness? The treatment plan for our baby involves
antifungal medications, like amphotericin for invasive infections. For allergic
aspergillosis, treatment involves steroids and antifungal agents.

a. Why are antibiotics used or not used in your treatment? Antibiotics are not used in our
treatment because antibiotics cannot kill fungi. Aspergillosis is a fungal infection.

b. Whats the babys prognosis after treatment? After treatment our baby will be able to live a
good quality of life. Our baby will most likely have improved breathing and more
energy. However, it is common for the disease to relapse and need treatment. If the
disease doesnt improve it may result in death. Results for our baby in the future may
be worse because she has asthma. This can result into many symptoms including
wheezing, fever, and coughing up blood or brownish mucus plugs.

c. What is the containment plan to keep your baby from spreading the illness? Include in your
answer information about the incubation period of the illness and how long the baby is
contagious. The incubation period of aspergillosis can vary from 2 days to 3 months.
Aspergillosis isnt contagious. However, in order to not further harm our baby we will
keep her away from woods and forests. This is because the fungus, aspergillus that
causes aspergillosis, is found in decayed leaves.

5. What type of pathogen is causing the illness (Virus, Bacteria, Protist, Fungus) The fungus
aspergillus is causing the illness.
a. Is there a vaccine for this illness? There is currently no vaccine for aspergillosis, however
a vaccine is being developed.
b. At what age can your baby receive the vaccine? There is no way to tell what age is
necessary because there is currently no vaccine.
c. Since they have the illness, do they even need a vaccine to prevent future illnesses from this
same pathogen? Explain why or why not. Our baby may not need a vaccine to prevent
future illnesses from this same pathogen because she may have improved breathing
after receiving treatment. Also, there is no vaccine to give our baby to prevent future
illnesses of the same pathogen.

6. List 3 Correctly-cited resources from which you found the information about infectious disease in
MLA format.

Works Cited
"Aspergillosis." HealthyChildren.org. Web. 04 May 2016.
"Aspergillosis - Causes ." Aspergillosis. Web. 04 May 2016.
"Aspergillosis: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia." U.S National Library of Medicine. U.S. National
Library of Medicine. Web. 04 May 2016.