Kwazulu-natal floods due to the current rainfall which is present in south Africa there are lot of measure needs to be taken with an emergency preparation because there might be eruption of disease caused by floods.
what are the diseases caused by floods?|Kwazulu-natal floods
Floods cause accumulation of water from different places and with these moving waters they carry different dirty and this dirty might be some carrying different diseases when they mix up with water or any food materials causing these diseases. Kwazulu-natal floods must be in alert.
Here is the list of the disease and mostly their communicable disease such as Water-borne diseases, such as typhoid fever, cholera, leptospirosis and hepatitis A and E. Vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue and dengue haemorrhagic fever will occur due to a conducive environment for the pest to breed that is mosquitoes.
Why Do Diseases Spread After Floods?
Kwazulu-natal floods, with the accumulation of water in this places and destruction of infrastructure which leads to unavailability of safe water, safe foods and good places to sleep and with this people might get infected easily and suffer a lot from this disease caused by floods.
Water-born disease are always the leading disease during floods so in order to prevent the spread of this water born disease the following emergency should be done to people in kwazulu-natal floods.
Prevention Of Water Borne Diseases.
Ensuring uninterrupted provision of safe drinking water: It is the most important preventive measure to be implemented following flooding, in order to reduce the risk of outbreaks of water-borne diseases. Chlorination of water is effective method for disinfecting drinking water.
Chlorination Of Water
Chlorination is the process of adding chlorine to drinking water to disinfect it and kill germs. Different processes can be used to achieve safe levels of chlorine in drinking water. Chlorine is available as compressed elemental gas, sodium hypochlorite solution (NaOCl) or solid calcium hypochlorite -Ca(OCl)2.
The amount of chlorine required depends mainly on the concentration of organic matter in the water and has to be determined for each situation. After 30 minutes, the residual concentration of active chlorine in the water should be between 0.2-0.5 mg/l, which can be determined using a special test kit.
Therefore, educated personnel’s who can do the process so as to avoid the imbalance of the amount of chlorine in water should be in emergency team to help people to get safe water.
Free chlorine is the most widely and easily used, and the most affordable of the drinking water disinfectants. It is also highly effective against nearly all waterborne pathogens (except Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts and Mycobacteria species). At doses of a few mg/litre and contact times of about 30 minutes, free chlorine generally inactivates >99.99% of enteric bacteria and viruses.
For point of use or household water treatment, the most practical forms of free chlorine are liquid sodium hypochlorite, solid calcium hypochlorite and bleaching powder (chloride of lime; a mixture of calcium hydroxide, calcium chloride and calcium hypochlorite).
Vaccination against hepatitis A
High risk groups may be vaccinated with hepatitis A vaccine, such as persons involved in the management of drinking water, waste water or sewage, otherwise use of hepatitis A vaccine for mass immunization is not recommended.
In case of an outbreak of hepatitis A immunization of contacts is considered. The use of immunoglobulins is not recommended.
Prevention of leptospirosis
- Risk of leptospirosis infection is minimized by avoiding contact with animal urine, infected animals or an infected environment.
- Where appropriate, protective clothing, rubber shoes and gloves should be worn and wounds covered with waterproof dressings to reduce the chance of infection, if exposure is likely, such as in occupational, floods, recreational exposure.
- In case of any cuts or abrasion on the lower extremities of the body, the worker should apply an antiseptic ointment e.g. betadine, before entering the field and after exit.
- Doxycycline 200 mg, once a week, may be given to workers (e.g. paddy field workers, canal cleaning workers or workers working in flood rescue areas) from where clustering of cases has been reported. The chemoprophylaxis should be for six weeks and never to be extended for more than eight weeks.
- Rodent control strategies: Adopting appropriate technology for anti-rodent operations with community awareness and participation.
- Creating awareness in general community, risk groups and health care providers, so that the disease can be recognized and treated as soon as possible.
- Mapping of water bodies for establishing a proper drainage system – The mapping of water bodies and human activities in water logged areas should be carried out. This will help to identify the high risk population. Farmers may be educated to drain out the urine from the cattle shed into a pit, instead of letting it flow and mix with water bodies (rivers, ponds etc.)
Vector-borne diseases prevention
Floods may indirectly lead to an increase in vector-borne diseases through the expansion in the number and range of vector habitats. Standing water caused by heavy rainfall or overflow of rivers can act as breeding sites for mosquitoes, and therefore enhance the potential for exposure of the disaster-affected population and emergency workers to infections such as dengue, malaria and other vector borne diseases.
Flooding may initially flush out mosquito breeding, but it comes back when the waters recede. The lag time is usually around 3-4 weeks before the occurrence of dengue cases and 6-8 weeks before the onset of a malaria epidemic.
Malaria epidemics in the wake of flooding are a well-known phenomenon in malaria endemic areas world wide. The risk of outbreaks is greatly increased by complicating factors, such as changes in human behavior (increased exposure to mosquitoes while sleeping outside, a temporary pause in disease control activities, overcrowding), or changes in the habitat which promote mosquito breeding (landslide, deforestation, river damming, and rerouting).
Rapid and appropriate precautionary vector-control measures applied in a post-natural disaster setting can prevent vector borne diseases.
Prevention of vector borne diseases.
Chemical Control
- Use of Indoor Residual Spray (IRS) with insecticides recommended under the vector-borne disease control programmes
- Use of chemical larvicides like Abate in potable water
- Aerosol space spray during day time
- Malathion fogging during outbreaks
Personal Prophylactic Measures that individuals/communities can take up
- Use of mosquito repellent creams, liquids, coils, mats etc.
- Use of bed nets treated with insecticide (LLIN).
- Wearing clothes that cover maximum surface area of the body
Flooding can have effects on people’s mental health and well-being. Most people can cope the situation while few people may develop mental health problems. The effects of being separated from family and friends, disruption to family life and daily routine and the loss of pets and possessions, moving to temporary accommodation, all can have an effect on mental health of children. Mental health during floods should be considered.
Symptoms can include: separation anxiety; irregular sleeping patterns or nightmares; behavioural problems such as becoming withdrawn, increased aggression, bedwetting; development of habit forming behaviours such as routines / rituals about washing and academic performance may suffer.
Psychological first aid can be provided by field workers, including health workers, teachers or trained volunteers, and does not always need mental health professionals. However psycho-social teams (psychiatrist, psychologists and psycho-social worker) may be needed for rapid psycho-social assessment and community based psycho-social care and referral services in affected community.
Therefore, learning what are the disease caused by floods, prevention of water borne disease and mental health during floods will be of help to people on emergency preparation during floods.
Kwazulu-natal floods, Prevention of water borne disease, mental health during floods, what are the diseases caused by floods, why do diseases spread after floods
