Academic literature on the topic 'Water-borne diseases. eng'

Abstract Unlike urban and semi-urban settlements where the potable water is supplied through a water treatment plant and a distribution network, in rural low-income settings, the provision of the water treatment plant for all villages is not feasible for a developing country like India. The most affordable and reliable way to provide clean drinking water is treatment at the consumer end. This research is aimed to assess occurrence of water-borne diseases based on personal hygiene and quality of drinking water source. Of the households, 4,237 in 15 selected villages were surveyed for personal hygiene using a questionnaire. Water samples were collected from all major water sources in the villages and analyzed for chemical and bacteriological properties. For water and personal hygiene, quality indices were calculated, and a mathematical model was developed using multiple linear regression analysis. The regression concluded that personal hygiene has a more significant effect on the occurrence of water-borne diseases than the quality of water source in the study area. Personal hygiene is one of the health factors neglected by the people specifically in rural India. Therefore, India needs to run campaigns like Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (Clean India Mission), which mainly aimed to reduce open defecation, to promote personal hygiene and to reduce the prevalence of water-borne diseases.

Many factors influence the world’s atmosphere and climate. Due to human activity, the concentration of "green house" gases is increasing resulting in rise of earth’s surface temperature. As a result of global warming, the eco system is changing, having adverse impact on our lives. Some increased health risk will be due to extreme weather events, while other problems will involve continual climate modification as consequences from ecological disruption or resulting from climate-induced economic disruption, e.g. traumatic, infectious, nutritional, psychological and other health consequences. Population, certain age groups such as elderly, women, children and vulnerable group, is at risk. For instance, there are risks of extreme temperatures and heat-wave, increased allergic disorders, hay fever, asthma due to air pollution, particulate matters and smog. In addition, due to flooding food-borne illnesses, water-borne illnesses, diarrheal diseases, increase in vector-borne diseases transmitted by Mosquitoes and mice e.g. Malaria, Filaria, Dengue fever, etc. There is compromise in food safety due to contaminated food with pesticide and bacteria resulting in food poisoning. Lifestyle and behavior are likely to be affected due to loss of social cohesion, increase in crime, accidents, anxiety, depression, stress, self harm and possible suicide, drug and alcohol misuse. Preventive measures will include assessment of the vulnerability of human health and mitigation measures. The health sector needs to play a key role in disease prevention, health education, disaster preparedness and effective measures to treat early evidence of impact affecting health. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ctbijis.v2i1.10818 Crossing the Border: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Vol.2(1) 2014: 127-134

Anopheles coluzzii is an important vector of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa particularly of the most dangerous malaria parasite. It completes its life cycle in water and a change in physicochemical properties particularly that of salinity of water may affect egg laying and perhaps the development of eggs to maturity. Studies have shown that climate change may alter the transmission of many vector-borne diseases in different parts of the world and global warming will also raise sea levels which will lead to an increase in saline and brackish water body in coastal areas. This study investigated the salinity tolerance level of An. coluzzii. It involved creation of artificial environments of different salinity gradients using rainwater and sea water and the subsequent exposure of the media to An. coluzzii for laying of eggs and development of larvae to adult. Anopheles coluzzii showed ovipositional preference for less saline media as there was significant negative correlation between number of eggs laid and salinity of oviposition media. Effect of salinity was evident in egg development and larval survival, as no egg hatched in >30% sea water, all L3 larvae died in >40% seawater, and the maximum seawater concentration for L4 survival was 30%. An LC50 of 17.51% (95% CI: 9.31–24.56)% and 23.4% (95% CI: 16.76–22.30)% were calculated for L3 and L4 larvae respectively. Adults emerging from fresh and low saline water of 10% seawater had greater energy reserve than those emerging from 20% and 30% seawater. Increasing salinity did not affect wing length of the emerging adult. Despite the increased stress on larval development, some individuals survived and went on to emerge as adults in conditions that seem to be representative of brackish water. This may imply that an increase in brackish water sites caused by rising sea levels might create more suitable breeding sites for this species.

Various pollutants of different sizes are directly (e.g., water-borne diseases) and indirectly (e.g., accumulation via trophic transfer) threatening our water health and safety. To cope with this matter, multifaceted approaches are required for advanced wastewater treatment more efficiently. Wastewater treatment using mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) could provide an excellent alternative since it could play two roles in pollutant removal by covering adsorption and size exclusion of water contaminants simultaneously. This paper provides an overview of the research progresses and trends on the emerging materials used to prepare MMMs for pollutant removal from water in the recent five years. The transition of the research trend was investigated, and the most preferred materials to prepare MMMs were weighed up based on the research trend. Various application examples where each emerging material was used have been introduced along with specific mechanisms underlying how the better performance was realized. Lastly, the perspective section addresses how to further improve the removal efficiency of pollutants in an aqueous phase, where we could find a niche to spot new materials to develop environmentally friendly MMMs, and where we could further apply MMMs.

The ill-provision of water and sanitation services poses the greatest risk to people living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa – a majority of whom reside in slum settlements. People living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) die after succumbing to opportunistic infections, especially water-borne diseases (e.g., diarrhoea, cholera). This study was based on 485 individuals with HIV and AIDs drawn from three types of settlements (rural, peri-urban and urban slums) and sampled from three selected provincial districts of Khayelitsha (Western Cape), Ukhahlamba (Eastern Cape) and Groblersdal (Limpopo). The results show PLWHA having higher willingness-to-pay (WTP) for sanitation at ZAR448.40/month compared to water (ZAR428.60). Those living in urban slum settlements show the highest WTP for sanitation (ZAR552.70), followed by the ones in rural areas (ZAR500.24). The results underscore important implications: PLWHA face greater sanitation challenges relative to water; those in slum settlements endure the worst sanitation insecurity compared to counterparts living in other settlement types; higher WTP for sanitation implies that PLWHA will derive greater benefits from improvements in sanitation services relative to water. To conclude, it is imperative for municipal authorities to prioritize the provision of sanitation facilities to PLWHA especially in urban slums as part of the ‘pro-poor service delivery’ campaigns.

The threat of TB continues to occur in the world. In 2018, 10 million people suffered from TB, and 1.5 million people die from this infectious disease. Referring to target 3 of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) goals 03 regarding good health and well-being, by 2030, end the epidemic of AIDS, TB, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases, and other communicable diseases. Based on data from the WHO, Indonesia ranks 3rd for TB cases globally. The estimated population suffering from TB is 845,000 cases; only 68 percent of cases were found and treated in 2018. The high number of TB cases in Indonesia could threaten the golden generation's opportunity in the next 2025 demographic bonus, where the number of productive age population is higher than the population non-productive age. This study found that population factors such as population, population density, and the number of poor people had a positive and significant effect on TB cases. In contrast, the GRDP per capita, the number of health workers, and literacy rates negatively affected the TB cases.Furthermore,environmental factors from the availability of proper sanitation and toilet facilities show a negative but insignificant effect on TB cases.

The association that many crops can establish with the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) present in soils can enhance the resistance of the host plants against several pathogens, including Verticillium spp. The increased resistance of mycorrhizal plants is mainly due to the improved nutritional and water status of crops and to enhanced antioxidant metabolism and/or increased production of secondary metabolites in the plant tissues. However, the effectiveness of AMF in protecting their host plants against Verticillium spp. may vary depending on the environmental factors. Some environmental factors, such as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the availability of soil water and the air and soil temperatures, are predicted to change drastically by the end of the century. The present paper discusses to what extent the climate change may influence the role of AMF in protecting crops against Verticillium-induced wilt, taking into account the current knowledge about the direct and indirect effects that the changing environment can exert on AMF communities in soils and on the symbiosis between crops and AMF, as well as on the development, incidence and impact of diseases caused by soil-borne pathogens.

Increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria that cause zoonotic infections is a major problem for farmers rearing animals for food as well as for consumers who eat the contaminated meat resulting in food-borne infections. Bacteriophages incorporated in animal feed may help reduce carriage and infections in animals including chickens and pigs. There are, however, unmet challenges in protecting phages from processing stresses e.g., during animal feed pelleting operations and during transit of phages through the acidic gastric environment. Core-shell capsules were produced using a concentric nozzle and commercially available encapsulation equipment to fabricate capsules with phages formulated in an oil-in-water microemulsion in the core. pH-responsive capsules released the encapsulated phage cargo within 10–30 min triggered by changes in local environmental pH typically found in the lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract of animals. Acid stability of phages exposed to pH values as low as pH 1 was demonstrated. Encapsulated phages were able to withstand exposure to 95 °C wet heat thermal stress for up to 120 s, conditions typically encountered during feed pellet extrusion processing. Free phages were inactivated within 15 s under these conditions. The present study demonstrates that encapsulation of bacteriophages in core-shell pH-responsive capsules with water-in-oil emulsified phages in the core significantly improves phage viability upon exposure to processing and environmental stresses that require consideration during production of animal feed and application in animals for biocontrol. The results from this study should help guide future development of phage formulations suitable for use in animal feed for animal biocontrol applications.

The most underdiagnosed water-borne bacterial zoonosis in the world is Leptospirosis which especially impacts tropical and humid regions. According to World Health Organization (WHO), the number of human cases is not known precisely. Available reports showed that worldwide incidences vary from 0.1-1 per 100 000 per year in temperate climates to 10-100 per 100 000 in the humid tropics. Pathogenic bacteria that is spread by the urines of rats is the main reason of water and soil infections. Rice field farmers who are in contact with infected water or soil, contain the most burden of leptospirosis prevalence. In recent years, this zoonotic disease have been occurred in north of Iran endemically. Guilan as the second rice production province (average=750 000 000 Kg, 40% of country production) after Mazandaran, has one of the most rural population (Male=487 679, Female=496 022) and rice workers (47 621 insured workers) among Iran provinces. The main objectives of this study were to analyse yearly spatial distribution and the possible spatial clusters of leptospirosis to better understand epidemiological aspects of them in the province. Survey was performed during the period of 2009–2013 at rural district level throughout the study area. Global clustering methods including the average nearest neighbour distance, Moran’s I and General G indices were utilized to investigate the annual spatial distribution of diseases. At the end, significant spatial clusters have been detected with the objective of informing priority areas for public health planning and resource allocation.

In developing areas around the globe it is extremely hard for health related institutions and governments to implement prevention and treatment policies, to improve public health, due to poor economical resources and infrastructures; low awareness; inadequate personnel; high prevalence of parasites and pathogens with extreme infection burdens, as well as sociopolitical factors. Central government programs essential for the improvement of the general public health are limited in developing countries. These include mass vaccination programs, which are cornerstones of primary health-care [1]; programs to reduce waterborne and water-associated vector-borne diseases [2]; routine surveillance activities [3,4]; regulation of pesticide usage (e.g. developing countries use only 20% of the world's agrochemicals, yet they suffer 99% of deaths from pesticide poisoning [5]); programs to reduce malnutrition [6]; programs to educate the public (e.g. use of condoms to reduce sexually transmitted diseases); and funding of medical care. However, the high disease rate itself possesses a very significant economic burden on developing countries. This burden exacerbates the incapacity of the governments to address the critical need for better health care. For example, malaria alone costs sub-Saharan Africa US$100 billion in lost annual gross domestic product (GDP) [1]. The combination of high infection rates together with poor public health care has become a vicious cycle that needs to broken. While in developed countries prevention and treatment modalities have significantly improved public health, the standard of living and life expectancy [1,7-9], this is not the case in developing countries, where the improvement of health care is multifaceted and extremely complicated. Assistance from world organizations together with the developed and affluent countries is essential. However, it has to be taken into consideration that solutions that have been successful in developed countries may not be appropriate for those that are developing. For example, vaccines that may confer protection against HIV-1 in Europe and USA, may fail to do so in Africa and other developing countries due to the significantly different pre-existing immune background of the population [10-12]. Another problem is the extremely high illiteracy and poverty rate that prevails in many rural areas in these countries. Thus, simple, cost affordable, wide spectrum, immediate and applicable means, which accommodate the particular constraints of developing countries, must be developed and applied in order to specifically and rapidly address key issues of public health in these volatile regions. The current Hot Topic issue presents several cost-affordable and sustainable means that may help fight the high infections rates in developing countries. Doucoure and Farcy propose novel membrane systems that can be applied in small rural communities and remote areas in developing countries aimed at reducing water-borne diseases and pollutants. Borkow and Gabbay suggest the use of biocidal textiles in hospitals in order to reduce the high rates of nosocomial infections. Togo and his colleagues from a hospital in Bamako - Mali make a robust attempt to identify the causes of nosocomial infections in a developing country and recommend measures aimed at reducing these infections in hospital settings. Ole Skovmand discusses the use of insecticidal bednets for the fight against malaria in developing countries. Finally, Bentwich and colleagues present the hypothesis that the relatively straightforward treatment of helminthic parasites may have very wide ramifications in improving the treatment and prognosis of other diseases, and in enhancing the capacity to achieve effective immunization.