Epidemics
Epidemics after a natural disasters
Often times people think that epidemics often will happen following a natural disaster.
However, many of these are thought to have occurred due to other reasons, other than the actual event itself. In addition, while the threat of certain infectious diseases have taken place following certain weather events, there are many factors that will further contribute to the final epidemic levels actually being reached.
When a natural disaster like a flood, tornado, hurricane, Tsunami, Sandstorm, Earthquake, or even when a volcano takes place, often other chain of events will start to happen. With that said, some of these chain events could include damaging water lines, electric power lines going down, misplaced debris contaminating the soil, and other damaging effects to take hold. However, many people tend to start to think that the actual event itself will now cause a outbreak epidemic to occur, and thus could start to go into a panic mode.
Furthermore, many people get the notion in their heads from all the newscasts relating to the weather event, and often will assume that the event itself is going to cause the outbreak of a virus, or other health risks to start to take place. With that said, we would like to let our viewers know that they can take relief in knowing that this is actually a myth, and holds no actual evidence that a epidemic after a natural disaster will automatically occur. However, with that said, that does not mean that there are not any health related issues that you the viewer would need not to worry about when your faced with such a natural disaster around you.
Often times, the risk of facing any type of epidemic after a natural disaster will often be contributed to the fact that these kinds of weather related events often will cause large amounts of the population to become displaced at one time from their current homes. When that happens, you then will be facing the real fact of having no sanitized facilities, and often the lack of safe water conditions for the people to survive with. Furthermore, with the level of over crowding of the displaced population of people, and becoming forced to take shelter in a overcrowded location the spread of many airborne diseases can rise to extreme levels within a short amount of time span.
Keeping that thought in mind, when a natural disaster takes place the unfortunate truth to the matter is that there will be dead bodies often left behind for sometimes weeks, or months after the weather disaster hit. For that reason, many times the epidemic after a natural disaster could be slow, or rapid depending on the chain of events that happen for the clean up, and the after math process starts to take hold. Furthermore, the type of disease that could be spread would often be determined by how the death itself occurred.
What this means, is that if the natural disaster were for example a flood, then the drowning victims left behind could quite easily spread a epidemic after a natural disaster. However, deaths that take place from other communicable diseases, are less likely to make this happen. With that said, some epidemics after a natural disaster like a flood, can cause viruses like the West Nile Virus to reach epidemic levels fast due to the amount of standing water that will often take clean up crews weeks, and months even to get back into the normal range. With this amount of standing water, it will make a breeding ground for the mosquitoes to lay their eggs, and thus could cause a epidemic for this particular virus to take hold pretty fast.
In addition, in order for viruses, and other airborne diseases to take hold under these types of natural disaster conditions there are a few things to keep in mind before you reach the panic level. Often is the case, that yes when the population is put into tight rescue facilities, and some of these people already have a cold, or virus prior, then the risk of causing other people within the same area to become infected is very much true. Furthermore, a epidemic after a natural disaster such as Tetanus can indeed become dangerous very quickly when a large amount of people get injured with puncture wounds from falling debris while the weather event is taking place. When that happens, then again a epidemic could arise very fast.
Keeping that in mind, even this type of epidemic will often only effect those people who might not have had their immunization for Tetanus before the natural disaster hit the area. With that said, a epidemic after a natural disaster such a malaria, or tuberculosis within certain regions might already have been rampant within those certain regions long before the natural disaster even took place. That is why many people will get easily confused thinking that simply because the weather disaster hit, and then they start to see rising cases of these types of diseases that it had to have been the weather change causing it to take place, even though the virus or disease had already been established.
However, it often is later discovered once the crises has passed, and the clean up process begins that these certain epidemics had already been effecting the area prior to this. With that in mind, people do need to be aware that there are certain diseases like the ones already mentioned within this article, and yet another common one diarrheal disease that could easily reach epidemic levels again like what happened in the Haiti earthquake back in the year of 2010. For that reason, we strongly would recommend to our viewers that should you ever have the misfortune of being in any type of natural disaster that you take extra precautions immediately.
In addition, when facing any type of natural disaster situation you will want to be certain that you never drink any type of water right after the weather event, especially if it only just happened. This is primarily because you can then create a much greater risk of speeding up a epidemic crisis to occur as the standing water left behind often will carry many types of viruses, and bacteria elements inside of it. Furthermore, flood waters can cause certain diarrheal illnesses such as Salmonel entericaserotype Paratyphi A, which often seems to appear in many third world countries especially after a natural disaster like flooding.
Nonetheless, if you can shield your bare skin, protect your nose, ears, and eyes you might be able to avoid the heightened risk of catching any of these types of airborne viruses. However, other types of Hepatitis A and E can also be transmitted back to humans, especially when there is a lack of safe drinking water made readily available when a natural disaster has already happened. With that said, a epidemic after a natural disaster may arise sometimes weeks later, depending on the type of weather disaster that took place.
Keeping that thought in view, one such example would be that of an earthquake, which could lead to the epidemic of coccidiomycosis. This particular disease is not transmitted from person to person, but is often found in the soil. Furthermore, the way this epidemic from a natural disaster could take place is because of the increased exposure levels of the airborne dust, which arose as a result of the aftermath of this earthquake taking place.
In addition, some types of epidemic outbreaks could often occur long after the initial natural disaster happened. Typically this is the case when many of the clean up efforts are cut short due to funding, or the length of time already on the location has expired. When the areas are left too soon these types of situations could cause a epidemic to arise causing some certain outbreaks like ARI, which is pneumonia, and influenza to go on to effecting the persons immune system simultaneously. In addition, other illnesses like Measles, Meningococcal Meningitis, and TB have often been linked to the air-borne diseases that can occur from air borne droplets being easily spread around after a natural disaster happened.
When it comes to the many ways that a epidemic after a natural disaster could be developed. often times people are misinformed thinking that the actual disaster itself caused this epidemic. However, if they take their time to read further into the many reasons certain illness can easily take hold, and infect people they often will be surprised to realize that it wasn’t actually the natural disaster causing the issues, but perhaps other underlying reasons. Finally, if you should be in a situation where a natural disaster has taken place, taking a few moments to properly access the area for necessities such as a proper water supply, food, and temporary shelter that is not faced with overcrowding could potentially help with epidemics from taking place due to the lack of these immediate needs.