Water Shortage: Waterborne Diseases
The aspect of water security I choose to focus on is water pollution, specifically waterborne diseases. Waterborne diseases such as polio, cholera, hepatitis, and dysentery are awful diseases and considerably debilitating and in some cases fatal. These diseases are caused by highly pathogenic waterborne bacteria such as Clostridium botulinum, Vibrio cholerae, Shigella dysenteriae, and Salmonella typhi. The World Health Organization attributes the mortality of water associated diseases to over 5 million people a year, with 1.5 million of those deaths being children1. More than half of these deaths are caused by microbial infections, with cholera infections being the most common1. While generally considered rare in developed countries such as the US, waterborne diseases are extremely common in the developing world due to the lack of access to clean water or lower standard of regulations in water tables.
The greatest risk of infection comes from ingesting water that has been contaminated with feces, human or animal2. Wastewater runoff from animal agriculture farms may be a major source of fecal microorganism contamination, mainly dangerous waterborne …show more content…
Several things must be noted upon acquisition of the water samples: location of farm, proximity to natural water source, proximity to residential areas, species of animals farmed, type of animal feed used, and whether or not preventative antibiotics are being administered (antibiotics given to animals without an infection to prevent a possible infection). Ideally, this project would be completed in a developing country where incidence of waterborne diseases is higher; however, it is possible to do this project in a developed country. Possible countries include India, Kenya, and Haiti as these are countries currently facing outbreaks of waterborne
The aspect of water security I choose to focus on is water pollution, specifically waterborne diseases. Waterborne diseases such as polio, cholera, hepatitis, and dysentery are awful diseases and considerably debilitating and in some cases fatal. These diseases are caused by highly pathogenic waterborne bacteria such as Clostridium botulinum, Vibrio cholerae, Shigella dysenteriae, and Salmonella typhi. The World Health Organization attributes the mortality of water associated diseases to over 5 million people a year, with 1.5 million of those deaths being children1. More than half of these deaths are caused by microbial infections, with cholera infections being the most common1. While generally considered rare in developed countries such as the US, waterborne diseases are extremely common in the developing world due to the lack of access to clean water or lower standard of regulations in water tables.
The greatest risk of infection comes from ingesting water that has been contaminated with feces, human or animal2. Wastewater runoff from animal agriculture farms may be a major source of fecal microorganism contamination, mainly dangerous waterborne …show more content…
Several things must be noted upon acquisition of the water samples: location of farm, proximity to natural water source, proximity to residential areas, species of animals farmed, type of animal feed used, and whether or not preventative antibiotics are being administered (antibiotics given to animals without an infection to prevent a possible infection). Ideally, this project would be completed in a developing country where incidence of waterborne diseases is higher; however, it is possible to do this project in a developed country. Possible countries include India, Kenya, and Haiti as these are countries currently facing outbreaks of waterborne