4. Floods cause the spread of diseases,
Answers
Floods can potentially increase the transmission of the following communicable diseases: Water-borne diseases, such as typhoid fever, cholera, leptospirosis and hepatitis A and E. Vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue and dengue haemorrhagic fever, and West Nile Fever.
Answer:
Abstract
Floods are one of the natural disasters occurring worldwide which have a massive range of health impacts. In addition to immediate dangers such as drowning, floods can increase the transmission of some communicable diseases. Up to now, there was no report of viral infection outbreaks after the 2019 spring floods in Iran. This review explains the possible viral infections which may occur during or after floods.
Keywords: Viral infections, Flood, Disaster
INTRODUCTION
Floods are common disasters worldwide. In 2016, globally more than 74 million people were affected by flooding, leading to 4720 deaths with a high economic cost, of which 43% happened in Asia (1–3). Floods occurrence has tended to increase in recent decades, and this trend is likely to enhance with climate change. According to the Iranian Department of Environment, of 421 flood events from 1951 to 2001, nearly 74% were only from 1981 to 2001 which during this period the flood rate was 20 times higher than before. From 2001 to 2019, there were several floods in different parts of the country, which the last one was in spring 2019. In fact, during March and April 2019, Iran experienced flooding in three provinces (Khuzestan, Lorestan, and Golestan) which affected many people that were displaced and moved into the camps. These floods had adverse impacts on living conditions in affected areas.
Health effects often related to floods are gastrointestinal and respiratory infections which are major reasons for diseases and death in people displaced by natural disasters. Lack of access to healthcare services and crowding, augment the risk of death from these infections. Floods negatively affect supply systems and water sources, in addition to waste-disposal systems and sewerage, then the transmission of pathogens is prone to be increased (4).
The risk of viral infections after a flood is a really important health issue and different classes of infectious diseases can cause outbreaks during the weeks after the flooding. Floods can increase the transmission of viral diseases, especially water-borne infections, such as diarrheal diseases, hepatitis A and E, air-borne infections, and vector-borne diseases such as yellow fever, West Nile fever (WNF), and dengue fever.