Friday, August 1, 2014
Giardia
Giardia is a
microscopic parasite that causes giardiasis, a diarrheal illness. It is found on surfaces or in water, soil, and
food that is contaminated with infected human or animal feces.
Prevalence
Around the World
Giardiasis infects nearly 2% of adults and 6% to 8%
of children in developed countries worldwide, and nearly 33% of people in
developing countries. Giardia infection is the most common intestinal parasitic
disease in the United States. Infection occurs when Giardia cysts (hard shells
containing Giardia) found in contaminated food or water are swallowed. The cysts
leave the body through fecal discharge. An infected individual sheds about 1-10
billion cysts daily and shedding may last for several months. Also, swallowing
as few as 10 cysts might still cause someone to become ill. Giardia is passed
from person-to-person or even animal-to-person. Symptoms begin 1 to 3 weeks
after a person has been infected.
Life
cycle
Symptoms
·
Diarrhea
·
Stomach
or abdominal cramps
·
Upset
stomach or nausea
·
Dehydration
Treatment
There are several effective drugs are used to treat
Giardia infections, and these drugs include metronidazole, tinidazole, and
nitazoxanide. Alternative drugs include paromomycin, quinacrine, and
furazolidone. Proper nutrition and a strong immune system can shape the effusiveness
of the drugs.
Prevention
and Control
Practicing good hygiene is the most effective way
to prevent infection and transmission.
o Wash hands with soap and clean, running water
for at least 20 seconds; rub your hands together to make lather and be sure to
scrub the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
§
Before, during, and
after preparing food
§
Before eating food
§
Before and after caring
for someone who is sick
§
Before and after
treating a cut or wound
§
After using the toilet
§
After changing diapers
or cleaning up a child who has used the toilet
§
After blowing your nose,
coughing, or sneezing
§
After touching an animal
or animal waste
§
After handling pet food
or pet treats
§
After touching garbage
Website
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Rachel Carson Responsible for the Deaths of Millions of African Children
Rachel Carson’s writings regarding the beauty and
significance of the natural world inspired many to pay close attention to environment.
Specifically, it encouraged people to be more aware of the negative changes
that were occurring as a result of human modification of environmental
conditions through the use of natural resources, production of waste, and possible
health consequences that could follow. Her last novel The Silent Spring, which was published in 1962, changed the course
of history as it triggered an environmental movement that has influenced a whirlwind
of controversies over the use environmentally harmful chemicals such as pesticides.
Particularly, Carson addressed the dangers that DDT posed on plant, animal, and
human life. Ultimately, Carson’s arguments
and evidence against the negative environmental and possible health consequences
of harmful pesticides such as DDT were
so significant that they led to EPA
banning DDT in the United States in 1972
(EPA, 2014). Likewise, other nations around the world followed suit over the
years, and banned the use of DDT by negotiating a treaty that was signed at the
Stockholm Convention on persistent
organic pollutants (POPs) in 2011 to promote a global ban on POPs such as DDT. Only
23 countries currently use DDT, and the use of DDT in some of these counties
was exempted by the POPs treaty due to the severity of vector transmitted
illnesses (Meiners & Morriss, 2001). Unfortunately, banning pesticides such
as DDT has led to the death of thousands, especially in the tropical regions of
sub-Saharan Africa, from a disease that is entirely preventable and curable,
malaria.
Malaria is a life-threatening illness that is caused
by a person to person transmission of protozoan parasites via female mosquitoes
from Anopheles genus (CDC, 2014). According to the World Health Organization, malaria
has caused more than 627,000 deaths and there was an estimated 207 million
cases, particularly among African children and pregnant women, in the year 2012
alone (WHO, 2014). Today, malaria is
mainly prevalent in developing nations but this was once not the case. In the early 1950’s malaria plagued much of Europe
and North America, but it was eradicated due the use of DDT (Tren & Bate,
2001). Since DDT was banned in the 1970’s and household use decreased, there has
been a rapid up rise of malaria cases worldwide (Roberts’ et al., 2000). Moreover, no peer viewed scientific studies have
been replicated enough to associate DDT with negative health and environmental
impacts (Roberts et al., 2000).
Nonetheless, the efforts to ban DDT have been mainly due to continuous pressures from environmental support agencies and their active campaign
towards the removal of DDT (Roberts et al., 2000). For example, WHO’s malaria eradication strategy
before the 1970’s involved spraying households with DDT to control malaria
transmission (Roberts et al., 2000). However, the negative attention that Silent Spring and the environmental
movement brought on DDT influenced WHO to switch to other malaria control
alternatives such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets, mosquito coils,
repellants, malarial drugs, and other materials in their Global Malaria Control
Strategy ( GMCS) in 1992 and their current Roll Back on Malaria project(Roberts
et al., 2000 & Meiners & Morriss, 2001). Interesting enough, malaria is currently an
issue of developing nations yet many of the current malaria control policies and
alternatives were produced by developed nations (Tren & Bate, 2001). Consequently,
these policies and alternatives have not been very successful as they are neither
suitable for nor applicable to the environmental conditions and way of life in developing nations (Tren
& Bate, 2001). Although Rachel
Carson is not directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of children, the
evidence she presented in the Silent Spring,
however, did lead to an environmental movement whose efforts to ban DDT affects
the lives of millions of African children every year.
Works Cited:
-CDC. (2014). CDC
and malaria. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/resources/pdf/fsp/cdc_malaria_program.pdf
-EPA. (2014).
DDT - a brief history and status. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/chemicals/ddt-brief-
history-status.htm
-Meiners, R.,
& Morriss, A. (2001). The legacy of the DDT Ban. Retrieved from
http://perc.org/articles/legacy-ddt-ban
-Roberts, D.,
Manguin, S., & Mouchet, J. (2000). DDT house spraying and re-emerging
malaria. Lancet, 356(9226), 330.
-Tren, R., &
Bate, R. (2001). Malaria and the ddt story. Retrieved from
-WHO. (2014).
Malaria. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en/
Pictures:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/jop5349/Assignment7.html
http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/malaria_worldwide/impact.html
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)