Sustainable Approaches to Water Borne Diseases
Rao M Sajjad Sharif* Ashfaq Ahmad, Shahid Majeed and Faisal Munir
Now, the planet is affected due to the action of climate change. Fluctuation in water cycle and climate will challenge the availability of water and also raise the contact to unsafe water. Droughts, change in rain pattern increase of sea level and temperature, heavy storms and floods, they all prove an enhancing the trend globally and will influence the components (chemical, biological and physical) of water through diverse ways thus increasing the risk of waterborne related diseases.
Sanitation-related infections and water borne diseases are major contributors to mortality and diseases burden. The major diseases burden on children less than five years and poorest societies. Many diseases such as bacterial, parasitic and viral have been linked with the mode of waterborne transmission.The diseases have been spread through recreational water and others by drinking water contact. In the period of 1991-1998 there were 230 waterborne outbreaks reported affecting an estimated 443000 people in U.S.
Engineering approach
This approach offers the technology and science for the design of adequate and safe water, drainage systems, hygiene, sanitation, management, operations and forecasting skills needed to optimize and maintain systems for a long period. The infrastructure of water related including drainage facilities (dams, culverts, bridges) and distribution systems (e.g. pipelines, treatment systems, wells) is designed to provide a supply of healthy and clean water and to eliminate the biological, physical and chemical contaminants. Both maintenance and design are important to the sustainability of the water related structure. In developed countries, many water related infrastructures have been built, operated and designed according to the prescriptive standards, practices and codes. In developing countries, much of the water related infrastructure is affected because of contamination, unsustainable water supplies and inadequate distribution in some areas. The deficient water related infrastructure such as poor water catchment or drainage, which may create the suitable habitats for mosquitoes, pathogens and other contaminants. The technologies such as low water use or dry toilets can help to decouple from sanitation in arid areas.
Public health Approach
The public health approach is to evaluate the vector control techniques, rehydration therapies, ORT supplements and vaccines, such involvement do not always interpret for the norms, pathogen, behavior and human ecology. Furthermore, the involvement should be focused at the reduction of infectious diseases than the eradication. Such approaches assist the use of early warning systems and preventative measures and can eliminate the gap between policy and research. Health systems are accountable for both preventive and curative care, extend many opportunities for public health for provision of improved sanitation and clean water through education, interventions and surveillance. Yet the clinics, hospitals and the health posts themselves suffer from the multiple ranges of water related issues. In the developing countries, the delivery and operating rooms dispose of many infectious waste in open sewer and pit and the waste material is neither reliable.
Ecological approaches
According to theecological approaches the water related diseases have drawn from genetics, epidemiology and biology among the other important fields, to focus mainly on environmental factors of diseases via increasingly anthropogenic changes and natural to the fleshly environment, which usually results from transfer in technologic growth, consumption and population. Often disease, vector and stressors can be linked to these alters from micro scale (wells, rivers) to global scales (climatic effects on biomes and water flow). Many modes of transmission for waterborne and vectorborne pathogens that rely on climatic, infrastructural, and environmental conditions. Through human feces, many pathogens move about the environment and both animals and human can react as hosts. Vulnerability to pathogens fall in both public (market, transportation and workplaces) and private places (fields, private yard and domestic living spaces). And it is also linked to poor education, poverty and underdevelopment. In such program, the requisite for increased society monitoring, evaluation, poverty and education has been identified.
