Waterborne disease
Waterborne diseases are diseases caused by pathogenic micro-organisms that are transmitted by water. These diseases can be spread while bathing, washing, drinking water, or by eating food exposed to contaminated water. They are a pressing issue in rural areas amongst developing countries all over the world. While diarrhea and vomiting are the most commonly reported symptoms of waterborne illness, other symptoms can include nausea, stomach cramps, fever, and skin, ear, respiratory, or eye problems. Lack of clean water supply, sanitation and hygiene are major causes for the spread of waterborne diseases in a community. Therefore, reliable access to clean drinking water and sanitation is the main method to prevent waterborne diseases.
Microorganisms causing diseases that characteristically are waterborne prominently include protozoa and bacteria, many of which are intestinal parasites, or invade the tissues or circulatory system through walls of the digestive tract. Various other waterborne diseases are caused by viruses.
Yet other important classes of waterborne diseases are caused by metazoan parasites. Typical examples include certain Nematoda, that is to say "roundworms". As an example of waterborne Nematode infections, one important waterborne nematode disease is Dracunculiasis. It is acquired by swallowing water in which certain copepoda occur that act as vectors for the Nematoda. Anyone swallowing a copepod that happens to be infected with Nematode larvae in the genus Dracunculus, becomes liable to infection. The larvae cause guinea worm disease.
Another class of waterborne metazoan pathogens are certain members of the Schistosomatidae, a family of blood flukes. They usually infect people that make skin contact with the water. Blood flukes are pathogens that cause Schistosomiasis of various forms, more or less seriously affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Terminology
The term waterborne disease is reserved largely for infections that predominantly are transmitted through contact with or consumption of microbially polluted water. Many infections may be transmitted by microbes or parasites that accidentally, possibly as a result of exceptional circumstances, have entered the water. However, the fact that there might be an occasional infection need not mean that it is useful to categorize the resulting disease as "waterborne". Nor is it common practice to refer to diseases such as malaria as "waterborne" just because mosquitoes have aquatic phases in their life cycles, or because treating the water they inhabit happens to be an effective strategy in control of the mosquitoes that are the vectors.A related term is "water-related disease" which is defined as "any significant or widespread adverse effects on human health, such as death, disability, illness or disorders, caused directly or indirectly by the condition, or changes in the quantity or quality of any water". Water-related diseases are grouped according to their transmission mechanism: water borne, water hygiene, water based, water related. The main transmission mode for waterborne diseases is ingestion of contaminated water.
Causes
Lack of clean water supply, sanitation and hygiene are major causes for the spread of waterborne diseases in a community. The fecal–oral route is a disease transmission pathway for waterborne diseases. Poverty also increases the risk of communities to be affected by waterborne diseases. For example, the economic level of a community impacts their ability to have access to clean water. Less developed countries might be more at risk for potential outbreaks of waterborne diseases but more developed regions also are at risk to waterborne disease outbreaks.Socioeconomic factors
The lack of education in impoverished regions is a key component to the issue of waterborne disease. The more a society is educated on an issue, the more they can take action and solve the problem domestically rather than relying on foreign counties for aid. Many countries in the Middle East, South East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa are prone to these issues because they lack advanced education. For example, Morocco has a very insufficient labor supply for the production of food and other work forces that it could very well be maximizing. In response, the United States and Morocco along with many other agencies worked together to initiate H2O Maghreb. This program works to educated the people of Morocco on clean water and sanitization through simulations of water treatment. Not only do the virtual reality technologies recreate rare emergency circumstances to practice dealing with, but they also provide jobs for a poorer country to help the economy too.Political turmoil and war stimulate the transmission of waterborne disease in addition to lack of education. Countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region deal with this issue especially. The world bank has classified Yemen, along with several other countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region as "fragile and conflict-affected countries." Syria and Lebanon had not seen any out breaks of cholera in about three decades, yet they did in 2022. War destroys necessary infrastructure for clean water and sanitization structures: a recipe for disease to spread. Two years ago the world health organization changed the status of cholera to a Grade 3 global public health emergency. Between the years 2016 and 2022 Yemen saw 2.5 million cases of cholera. These outbreaks are closely tied to the conflicts in the region. War also destroys the necessary medical facilities and hospitals to take care of patients who have contracted the waterborne diseases. In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, countries are no longer grappling with a pandemic, but rather an endemic.
Other war torn regions such as Gaza must manage complex water systems which present more danger to the quality of water and chance of waterborne disease being present. Gaza gets the majority of their water from underground but also some from Israel; they also have several desalination plants across the region. Workers are constantly working to fix water pipeline systems that have been destroyed by artillery from the war but are sometimes killed in the process. For a comparison of a safe country's clean water consumption to a war torn country's water consumption, Americans use about 300 liters per day while in Gaza a person would use about 80 liters per day. With every part of the water system in Gaza suffering harm in some shape or form by 2024, waterborne disease cases shortly thereafter exploded with 600,000 cases of acute diarrhea and even a 10 month old with polio.
Influence of climate change
Climate change influences the growth and survival of bacteria and other pathogens in food and water systems. It affects waterborne diseases by influencing water temperature, water quality, sanitation, and microbial ecology.Warmer waters, increased flooding, precipitation and humidity promote the growth and spread of bacteria such as Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera, and other pathogens responsible for gastroenteritis, wound infections and diarrheal diseases. Higher water temperatures can also increase the yield of bacteria from drinking water delivery systems and during periods of warmer temperatures water consumption rates are also typically higher. Together these increase the probability of pathogen ingestion and infection.
Heavy rainfall and flooding caused by climate change can also affect pathogen transmission via impacts on sanitation and/or drinking water treatment infrastructure, contaminating drinking water sources or food products. Floods can overwhelm water systems, causing backflows that lead to contamination of groundwater and other drinking water sources.
Diseases by type of pathogen
Protozoa
Bacteria
Viruses
| Disease and transmission | Viral agent | Sources of agent in water supply | General symptoms |
| Hepatitis A | Hepatitis A virus | Can manifest itself in water | Symptoms are only acute and include Fatigue, fever, malaise, abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, weight loss, itching, jaundice, and depression. |
| Hepatitis E | Hepatitis E virus | Enters water through the feces of infected individuals | Symptoms of acute hepatitis, including fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, jaundice, dark urine, clay-colored stool, and joint pain |
| Acute gastrointestinal illness | Norovirus | Enters water through the feces of infected individuals | Diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, stomach pain |
| Poliomyelitis | Poliovirus | Enters water through the feces of infected individuals | 90–95% of patients show no symptoms, 4–8% have minor symptoms with delirium, headache, fever, and occasional seizures, and spastic paralysis, 1% have symptoms of non-paralytic aseptic meningitis. The rest have serious symptoms resulting in paralysis or death |
| Polyomavirus infection | Two of Polyomavirus: JC virus and BK virus | Very widespread, can manifest itself in water, ~80% of the population has antibodies to Polyomavirus | BK virus produces a mild respiratory infection and can infect the kidneys of immunosuppressed transplant patients. JC virus infects the respiratory system, kidneys or can cause progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in the brain. |
Algae
Parasitic worms
Prevention
Reliable access to clean,uncontaminated drinking water and proper sanitation are the main methods to prevent waterborne diseases. Vaccination is another methord to prevent the body from geting water-born diseases The aim is to break the fecal–oral route of disease transmission.Solar energy has been become a clean and efficient means by which water can now be distilled and desalinated. This method is environmentally safe because it does not produce mass amounts of carbon dioxide that could damage the planet. In fact, the carbon dioxide emissions are virtually zero from using solar energy to distill or desalinate water.
Desalination is the process by which salt is removed from water making it potable. Because water is a scarce resource, meaning that there is a finite amount of it for all of humanity to share, research into sustainability methods for increasing the amount of potable water is important. With an abundance of salt water on Earth, the solar desalination method is innovative and presents potential. It works by using solar panels that capture solar energy from the sun which it then uses to remove the salt from the water through a process called reverse osmosis. The solar energy is converted into electricity via the solar panels. This electricity is then used to push the water at high pressures through filters that block the salt from passing through but do allow the water to pass. This method of desalination is also beneficial to society because it can be used in remote locations. It does not require a connection to a large pipeline system traditionally used that also produce large amounts of carbon dioxide. Specifically, this method is most productive were there is ready access to salt water, an abundance of sunshine, and a lack of fresh drinkable water.
Other policies and precautions can be taken too in order to prevent the spread of disease through contaminated water. For example, appropriate amounts of chlorine can be added to the potable water pipes to remove viruses. Typical household precautions including the use of disinfection wipes and sanitization sprays also are important to use around areas where clean water consumption is very important such as in bathrooms and kitchens.