Treatment For Waterborne Diseases
Treatment For Waterborne Diseases: Clean water is a luxury that not everyone can afford these days. Drinking water is a need and has become more of a privilege for the people living in Pakistan. There are many diseases that are related to water and it is necessary to take measures for the treatment by making safe consumption of water. Why we get infected with water and How?
Summer season is almost here and consumption of water will increase remarkably it is very important to keep a check on water that we are drinking to stay away from any disease or infection.
Let’s explore about it further!!
What is a Waterborne Disease?
Waterborne diseases are caused by drinking contaminated or dirty water. Reports from World Health Organization (WHO) suggest that 50% of diseases and 40% of deaths occur due to poor drinking water quality.
Contaminated water can cause many types of diarrheal diseases, including Cholera, and other serious illnesses such as Guinea worm disease, Typhoid, and Dysentery. It is estimated that water related diseases cause 3.4 million deaths each year.
Waterborne diseases get transmitted through various routes including consumption and contact with water, as well as inhalation of mist or aerosolized water particles.
In most rural areas of Pakistan, ground surface water and tube wells are used for drinking without slow sand filtration. No pre-treatment facilities are available for filtration of water. Hand pumps and wells are not protected from surface run-off, making the water from such sources not drinkable.
In 2016, an epidemic of a drug resistant strain with an additional piece of DNA that is resistant to multiple antibiotics of Typhoid alerted people from consuming food and water products of questionable nature.
Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources states that any source of water being polluted can be fatal. Samples of water collected from Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore were polluted by bacterial contaminants. Despite the water standards being similar to those of World Health Organization(WHO) guidelines, proper adherence and local attention to detail is mostly avoided and ignored.
Reason For Waterborne Diseases
One of two pathogens causes waterborne diseases.
- one of them is bacterial that results in gastrointestinal problems like diarrhoea and cholera that may show late symptoms; Acute Viral Hepatitis (AVH) that has similar symptoms as hepatitis A.
- Dirty water used to wash vegetables can often lead to waterborne diseases directly as well
- The hub for pathogens in the form of virus and bacteria reside in the cattle, goats, sheep and seafood we consume.
- Direct discharged waste from mammals and birds near agricultural sites and storm run-offs can come in contact with nearby waters and drainage and can lead to the contamination of food and water.
- Approximately 1.1 billion people on the globe are deprived of sufficient access to water. The ones with access often have sanitation water and the sewage pipeline running side by side, increasing the chance of a pipe leakage that leads to intermixing.
Treatment Options
With deterioration in water quality and without active participation from the authorities, prevention is the primary way to avoid waterborne diseases. Prevention strategies can include
- source protection: keep the utensil clean
- halogenation of water
- Boiling water for one minute
Good hygienic care and consistent socio-economic backup support is required from the councils to improve the disease. Medical experts states that drinking water should not have any color, turbidity, odor and microbes. Today, health care professionals are left with less treatment options. Therefore they say to avoid getting infected from water borne diseases, use boil water the most inexpensive and low cost treatment option.
“So Boil Water Before Drinking It”
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