Safe Drinking Water is Essential: Water-based

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Water-based

Water-based diseases are transmitted by aquatic organisms, such as worms. They may penetrate the skin if unclean water is used for cleaning or bathing. Guinea worms may enter the body through contaminated drinking water.

Schistosomiasis may not be as well known as malaria, but it is second only to that dreadful disease as the world’s most destructive parasitic infection. The disease is caused by several species of flatworms, which can penetrate human skin to enter the body and lay eggs. It can be passed through infected human waste.

Symptoms include itchy rashes, fever, chills cough and aches. More serious effects include organ damage (bladder and liver and kidneys), nervous system impairment, and, in children, stunted growth and cognitive development.

Perhaps 200 million people have schistosomiasis and 20 million of them suffer severe effects. The disease is most common in sub-Saharan Africa, where four of every five infected people live.

Large roundworms called Dracunculus medinensis cause guinea worm disease—a painful, blistering infection. The worms are originally ingested as larvae hosted by water fleas present in contaminated water. After a year or so, the mature worm tries to emerge from the human body to reproduce. This exit, which is often through the leg, causes the painful blistering for which the disease is known.

Guinea worm disease can incapacitate its victims and leave them unable to work or attend school. Some people suffer complications like infection, arthritis, and even permanent stiffness of the limbs.

Many victims try to ease their discomfort by submerging guinea worm disease blisters in water. Unfortunately, this practice typically prompts the worm to release thousands of larvae into the water, starting the cycle all over again.

Thanks to a WHO-backed eradication campaign, incidence of guinea worm has dropped dramatically in recent years. Today, the disease is mostly confined to Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana.

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