Over the years, water waste management became one of the common means to collect, remove, process and dispose materials in the water surroundings. There are a lot of ways on how to put this practice into an effective one. With each targets a particular issue and complication when it comes to water waste. But, if not put into proper practice brings great risk and danger to one’s health. This post mainly focuses on the water related vector borne diseases that can be acquired resulting from improper handling of water waste. Water related vector borne diseases are from water related disease transmitting agents, also called vectors or intermediate hosts. A vector is a form of animal, mainly an insect, which transmits an infection from one person to another person or from infected animals to humans. Meanwhile, intermediate hosts is similar to a vector, the only difference is they do not actively transmit a pathogen. Generally, both vector and intermediate host produce bacteria, viruses and parasites which are the main culprits for acquiring water related vector borne diseases. The largest group of disease transmitting agents are the insect vectors, mosquitoes in particular. They cause one of the vector borne diseases, the malaria. Malaria originates from a protozoan parasite of the genus Plasmodium. It causes fever, anaemia, enlargement of the spleen and cerebral complications in some cases. It is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito of the genus Anopheles. Malaria can be derived from the cycle between the man, which is the intermediate host or reservoir and the mosquito, which is the vector. Malaria can be found in most countries but also depends on climate, altitude, population density and environmental characteristics of a country. Major countries who are greatly affected by the malaria disease are sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and northern part of South America, Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Malaria also originates from the growing number of irrigation practices, drainage schemes or hydro electrical dams. In addition to the new open water surfaces, in the presentation of canals, ponds and artificial lakes, mosquito breeding sites have been formed. Another type of water related vector borne disease is the lymphatic filariasis. It is a mosquito borne filariasis which comprises of various diseases that often leads to inflammations and lesions of the lymphatic system. As opposed to malaria, filarial infection needs repetitive, continuous and long exposure to the vector due to low pathogen coming from the bite of the mosquito. This disease is mostly carried by people who live in rural environments and farm settings due to poor surface drainage, lack of sanitation procedures and environment pollution.
Photo source: http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/mosquito_104197
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