10 Things to Prevent Infectious Disease

1. Keep immunizations up to date. Follow recommended immunizations for children and adults. And don't forget your pets.
2. Wash your hands often, especially during cold and flu season. Be sure to wash hands.

• After using the bathroom.
• Before preparing or eating food.
• After changing a diaper.
• After blowing your nose or sneezing or coughing.
• After caring for a sick person.
• After playing with pets.

     3.  Be aware of what you eat, and be careful how you prepare it.

• Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold until eaten or cooked.
• Be sure that temperature controls in refrigerators and freezers are working properly.
• Wash counters and cutting boards and utensils frequently with soap and hot water, especially after preparing poultry or other meats, or any infection  
• Wash fresh fruits and vegetables before eating.
• Cook ground beef until you can no longer see any pink.

     4.  Use antibiotics exactly as prescribed, take them for the full course prescribed by your doctor, but not         for colds or non bacterial illnesses. Never self medicate with antibiotics or share them with family or friends.

     5.  Report to your doctor any quickly worsening infection that does not get better after you take a prescribed antibiotic.

     6.  Be cautious around all wild animals and domestic animal that are not familiar to you after any animals bite, clean the skin with soap and water and seek medical care immediately.

     7.  Avoid areas of insect infestation, use insect repellents on skin and clothing when in areas where ticks or mosquitoes are common.

     8.  Avoid unsafe unprotected sex and injecting drug use.

     9.  Stay alert to disease threats when you travel or visit undeveloped areas. Get all recommended immunizations, and use protective medications for travel, especially in areas with malaria. Don't drink untreated water  while hiking or camping. If you become ill when you return home, tell your doctor where you've been.

    10. When sick, allow yourself time to heal and recover. Be courteous others: wash your hands frequently, and cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough.

Fighting back Against Emerging Infectious Disease

Global Agencies
  
 Several activities have already been initiated to fight emerging infectious disease on the international front. In response to increasing concern about emerging infections, WHO began a global program in collaboration with national agencies, non -governmental organizations, and international donors. In October1995, WHO also established a central division in Geneva with the specific mandate to improve the detection of the global response to emerging infectious diseases.  

Communities

Advance in hygiene, immunization and antibiotics are important tools in the battle against emerging infectious diseases. But they all hinge on community partnership needed to launch and sustain an effective wide ranging and long term fight. Every community must have well functioning proactive infectious disease prevention and control capabilities to protect public safety and health.

1) Communities need sound infrastructure to ensure safe water supplies, community sanitation, and restaurant and food service inspection systems. Public health programs need well trained experts and adequate resources to detect and investigate unusual clusters of infectious disease.

2)Physicians and laboratories must share infectious disease information with public health officials who are looking for unusual disease clusters and patterns . Physicians need up to date information on on the frequency of antibiotics -resistant micro organisms in the community and must adjust their prescribing practice accordingly.

A hospital must be used protective precautions when caring for persons with infectious disease so they do not spread to others, Blood bank must look for potentially dangerous organisms in blood that is used for transfusion.

Child care centers and school must enforce immunization requirements to prevent childhood infectious disease  from spreading in the community . Schools must teach and model protective measure so that children will avoid infectious diseases now and when they are older.

Families and individuals 

Each of us and our families can be a front line against the treatment of emerging infectious disease  by following a few simple, common sense practice . Here are just a few.

    1) Keep immunizations up to date for children adults and pets.

    2) Wash hands often with warm water and soap. 
    3) Handle, store, and cook foods safely to guard against  food borne illness 
    4) Use antibiotics exactly as prescribed by the doctor, and finish the entire prescription to make sure that the culprit organism has no chance to develop drug resistance

    5) Be cautious around wild animals and unfamiliar domestic animals
    6) Use insect repellents-on skin and clothing when in areas when ticks or mosquitoes are common.
    7) Avoid unsafe and unprotected sex and injecting drug use
    8) Learn about disease threats before travelling or when visiting wilderness areas.
    9) When sick, allow time to heal and recover. Reminder family members to wash hands often, and avoid coughing or sneezing on others.

Emerging Infectious Disease

Infectious disease is human illnesses caused by microorganisms (microscopic life forms) or their poisonous by products.Disease- causing microorganisms reproduce in humans and have evolved to live in all human environments.

Several types of microorganisms can cause infectious disease:

1) Viruses
2) Bacteria and bacteria like organisms
3) Protozoa
4) Parasites
5) Fungi
6) Microscopic worms
7) Rickettsia

These microorganisms produces a vast array of illness -form the short lived, minor nuisance of the common cold or stomach "flu" to fetal episodes of Malaria, Cholera, Tuberculosis, and Ebola infection

Some disease causing microorganisms live only in humans. As they reproduce, they can spread from person to person directly through sneezing, coughing, touching, or sexual activity, in some cases an infected pregnant woman can infect her developing fetus in the womb. Microorganisms can also spread indirectly when an infected person contaminates an environmental surface or products (such as food) and the other people touch the surface or products. Some microorganisms can be spread when infected blood, or sometimes other infected body fluids, are exchanged with another person.

Many disease-causing microorganisms also live with animals or other parts of the environment. These microscopic disease agents can be spread to humans through contaminated food, beverages, surface, or object. Some can be breathed in from the air, or transmitted into the blood by an insect bite or the bite of a sick animal.

Emerging infectious disease are those that have appeared in a population within the past two decades or threaten to increase in the near future.

"New" infectious disease can emerge from genetic changes in existing organisms and appear suddenly in new populations. At least 30 new disease agents have been identified over the past two decades, and new agents are being added with disquieting regularity. (E.g. Lyme disease, legionnaire's disease; hepatitis C, AIDS)

Infectious disease viewed as afflictions of a bygone era are also making a comeback. Termed "reemerging infectious disease," these are illness from well-understood microorganisms that were ones under control but are now resistant to common antimicrobial drugs (ex: Malaria; Tuberculosis; Gonorrhea) or have gained new footholds in the populations (ex: Cholera).

Once thought to be on the verge of being eliminated as a public health problem, infections disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Of the nearly 52 million deaths in the world each year, infectious disease accounts for more than 17 million or one in three . Infectious disease is also the leading cause of death among children.

Simple principles of food and water safety, community hygiene, safe sex appropriate use of antibiotics, and immunization could prevent millions of death and illness from infectious disease each year. In the developing world, however, most of these practices have yet to be widely implemented, due to lack of resources.

Infectious disease thwarts the economic development of many of the world's poorest countries and strain already overburdened health- care infrastructures.

Many factors or combination of factors is making it easier for infectious disease to become an even bigger problem in the future.

1) The simple genetic makeup of many infectious microbes allows them to change their genetic makeup quickly and often , resulting in "new," more deadly strains against which humans have limited resistance.

2) Civil strife and poverty around the world result in mass migrations and the influx of refugees who carry infectious diseases into new areas.

3) Global air travel is increasing, and well people are travelling to areas where they get infected and bring new disease home with them.

4) Unchecked population growth and movement has led to the development of massive urban slums lacking in clean water and basic sanitation.

5) Population growth and shits have disturbed natural habitats and increased human contact with remote environments and poorly understood ecosystems that hide many previously unknown, dangerous microorganisms

6) Irrigation projects, deforestation, and other changes in land use upset the local ecology and create new habitats for parasite-carrying insects and animal hosts.

7) The globalization of world commerce means that potentially disease-carrying insects and contaminated foods,plants, and other products, cross country borders every day.

8) Because of years of misuse and overuse, once-dependable antibiotics such as penicillin and tetracycline are losing their ability to combat common infections. Disease agents have been "forced" to change their genetic makeup to adapt to antibiotics, and many disease-causing microorganisms have succeeded in becoming resistant to our most powerful modern drugs.

9) Changes in human behavior, such as new eating habits, risky sexual activity, and increased substance abuse, have expedited the spread of infectious agents. child-care centers play a role in substance abuse, have expedited the spread of infectious agents. child-care centers play a role in spreading contagious respiratory illnesses, middle ear infections, and intestinal ailments in susceptible children and their families.