A living organism cannot exist without water and food. This fact is known to all. But what to do when life itself is threatened by drinking or bathing in dirty water? Doctors try to answer this question with recommendations on how to protect themselves from infection through water. But the possibility of infection depends not only on the person, but also on the communications through which water is transported to apartments and houses. Water often enters homes with a pre-defined set of unwanted microorganisms.
Ponds in which you have to swim in the summer are not always cleared of dirt. Naturally, you can become infected not only while drinking water, but also when processing vegetables or fruits, while washing your hands. Possible places of infection are a pool, a lake, a river, even the sea, an apartment, a summer house and a house. What kind of diseases transmitted through water threaten to worsen your well-being and health, up to death, read in this article.
Methods of infection from water
The quality of water supplied to apartments and houses depends on special services that purify and filter drinking water, as well as on services that control the presence of pathogenic organisms in the water. In addition, when purified water moves through old pipes, through the thin walls of which sewage with a huge number of microbes can seep, this can also lead to poisoning and infection.
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In the summer, recreation near water bodies is popular, especially in urban areas – rivers, lakes, reservoirs. In them, water almost does not circulate and stagnates, which further worsens the pollution situation. If you swallow this water, you can easily pick up a sore. Water-borne infectious diseases are very difficult to cure, some of them are so severe that they lead to death.
According to statistics, four diseases out of five are partially or completely related to water, drinking or bathing. Diarrhea is the leading cause of death.
It is appalling that more than 1.1 billion people simply do not have access to clean drinking water. They have no choice but to use for all needs and drink ordinary water from the reservoir, without purification and disinfection. Every year, more than 2 million people die worldwide from waterborne infections.
Read also: Food poisoning in adults: 5 steps of treatment
Among other things, even in the pool you can catch many ailments, feeling not only all the benefits of swimming, but also adding health problems. That's why people don't want to take risks and don't go to the pool for swimming lessons, so as not to undermine their health even more.
Waterborne diseases
The list of diseases that are transmitted through water is huge. We provide data only for those diseases, which are the most common:
- ascariasis;
- botulism;
- anemia;
- cholera;
- diarrhea;
- Campylobacteriosis;
- dengue fever;
- fluorosis;
- cyanobacterial toxin;
- hepatitis E and A (Botkin's disease);
- malaria;
- Japanese encephalitis;
- legionellosis;
- trachoma;
- lead poisoning;
- typhoid;
- giardiasis;
- schistosomiasis.
Water becomes contaminated when sewage enters reservoirs with purified water. This can happen due to a system malfunction or after a flood, when the water level rises strongly, sweeping away everything in its path. It also happens that the infection comes from a source of drinking water and retains its viability even after passing through filters and cleaning procedures. The resistance of pathogenic microorganisms is increasing every day, so today doctors recommend purifying and filtering water from the tap so as not to get infected.
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In addition to direct infection through water after drinking, you can become infected by washing fruits or vegetables with dirty water or not thoroughly washing your hands after hygiene procedures, for example.
How to protect yourself from infection through water
To protect yourself from infection and prevent the spread of diseases from water, you must:
- perform all water procedures correctly,
- wash your hands with soap and water,
- vegetables and fruits should be washed thoroughly with running water to wash away all the dust,
- use only purified water;
- keep dishes and all kitchen utensils clean;
- do not use the same water for washing hands, dishes and food.
Diseases transmitted through water cause significant damage to health, so you should be careful about water procedures, do not visit polluted water bodies, and protect children from swimming in dirty water. The children's body is especially sensitive to infections and poisonings of various kinds, it is difficult to tolerate such diseases and it takes a long time to rehabilitate after that. Be healthy with estet-portal.com!
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