Water-Related Diseases

Overview: Water-borne diseases are any illness caused by drinking water, which contain pathogenic microorganisms. Over the past decades, the picture of water related human health issues has become increasingly comprehensive, with the emergence of new water related infection diseases and the re-emergence of ones already known. Data are available for some water, sanitation and hygiene related diseases, but for others such malaria, schistosomiasis the analyses remain to be done.

Problems associated: Waterborne diseases are infections, caused by bacteria, protozoa, viruses or parasites, which are transmitted by consumption of water containing these disease-causing organisms. Cholera – caused by Vibrio cholerae serogroups O1 or O139. Symptoms: profuse watery diarrhoea, vomiting, dehydration, acidosis and circulatory collapse. Due to the rapid dehydration, death in untreated individuals may occur within a few hours.

Statistics: Water related disease outbreak (WRDO) statistics in Italy from 1998 to 2005 have been discussed in this paper. The true incidence of WRDO is not reflected in the National Surveillance System (NSS), although this study has provided information on pathogens associated to different water sources, incidence in Regions and inadequacy of regulations. 192 outbreaks and 2546 cases of WRD were reported to the NSS, an average of 318 cases per year.

Treatment & Prevention: Essential to prevention efforts are clean drinking water, restaurant and meat inspection, temperature monitoring, appropriate sewage processing, monitoring of public waterways for contamination, and public education on proper hygiene. Vaccines are available for hepatitis A and typhoid fever. Most acute diarrhea episodes are self–limited. Oral or intravenous rehydration therapy may be needed, and an antimotility drug (eg, loperamide) may be useful in viral diarrhea.