Article Details

Influence of Lake Water Borne Diseases in Catchment Area | Original Article

Rankesh Kumar Jaiswal*, Deepak Kumar Mittal, in Journal of Advances in Science and Technology | Science & Technology

ABSTRACT:

This paper expressed the effect of lake water borne diseases, risk assessment and potential consequences on Indian economy. In Indian sub-continent higher burden of waterborne diseases due to a deteriorating public drinking water distribution system, increasing numbers of unregulated private water systems, and a limited, passive waterborne disease surveillance system. This shows that degraded water quality can contribute to water scarcity as it limits its availability for both human use and for the ecosystem. It isn’t cheap to treat water so that it is safe to drink. But it also isn’t cheap to treat everyone who becomes ill during a waterborne illness outbreak. As the level of protection becomes more effective, the cost of water treatment generally rises, as well. Unfortunately, government agencies generally attempt to minimize costs while the health effects have not been properly assessed. The extent to which the pressures on the Lake Victoria basin environment impact the health and nutrition of the communities within the region is often not adequately addressed. The burden of diseases and constraints on the health facilities in basin can be traced to the state of the environment, vulnerabilities of communities and livelihood strategies. Predominant health issues in the basin are linked to unsafe water contaminated by microbial and chemical pollutants, poor disposal of human waste, and food insecurity while some of the health problems in the basin are exacerbated by climatic conditions, whose extremes overwhelm the community’s coping capability. This paper documents the health related issues of the basin by relating the environment to the people’s vulnerabilities and ability to cope with the diseases (such as malaria, cholera, bilharzias and other human and zoonotic ailments). There is need to continuously monitor and evaluate health and diseases trends in the basin using a Health and Demographic Surveillance System.