essay on health , hygiene and sanitation in 1000 words .
Answers
HEALTH, HYGIENE AND SANITATION
If every individual on the planet maintains a good hygiene for himself and the things around him, diseases will become a thing of the past. Hygiene as defined by the WHO refers to “the conditions and practices that help maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases.” This means more than just keeping ourselves clean. This means shunning all practices that lead to bad health. Throwing garbage on the road, defecating in the open, and many more. By adopting such a practice, we not only make ourselves healthier but also improve the quality of our lives.
Diseases spread through vectors. Say the vector is contaminated water as in the case of typhoid, cholera, and amoebiasis (food poisoning), by drinking clean water always; we completely eliminate our chances of getting those diseases. Some diseases use insects and animals to spread, like plague uses rats, malaria, filarial, roundworms which in turn use flies and mosquitoes. Mosquitoes thrive in stagnant water and rats in garbage dumps and food that is dumped out in the open. By spraying stagnant water bodies with layer kerosene or other chemicals, we can completely eliminate mosquitoes from our neighborhood. If that is unfeasible, we can all use mosquito nets or bed nets that cover us in a fine mesh sort of net while we’re sleeping. This poses a physical barrier for the mosquito. Rats thrive on unsystematic waste disposal. By segregating the waste we can ensure that we don’t leave food lying around for rats to eat. Close contact with sick people is also another way of contracting diseases.
Sanitation is another very important aspect. Many of the common diseases mentioned earlier such as roundworms spread through the feces of infected people. By ensuring that people are not defecating out in the open, we can completely eliminate such diseases and even more severe ones such as the one caused by E. Coli.
The advancement in biology has given us answers to many questions, we are now able to identify the pathogen and treat an ailment accordingly.