WiRED Observes World Water Day and World TB Day
BY OLIVIA SPIRITO; EDITED BY BERNICE BORN
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ark your calendars for two important health observances this week. Thursday, March 22, is World Water Day, and Saturday, March 24, is World TB (tuberculosis) Day.
World Water Day promotes the importance of clean water in our ecosystem. United Nations Water states that 2.1 billion people live with unsafe drinking water. The World Health Organization maintains that health risks may arise from consumption of water contaminated with infectious agents, toxic chemicals or radiological hazards, and that improving access to safe drinking water can result in tangible improvements to health.
WIRED International provides a BioSand Filters Module in its Health Learning Center to educate communities on BioSand filter filtration, general water treatment and water and health. The module demonstrates how BioSand water filters use sand and gravel (found locally) in a slow filtration process that treats polluted water. The clean water produced from the filters can then be used by communities for drinking, cooking, sanitation and personal hygiene instead of their normally unsafe drinking water.
Each year the World Health Organization (WHO) designates World TB Day in order to raise public awareness of tuberculosis, and to report the latest prevention methods. WHO’s 2018 theme is “Wanted: Leaders for a TB-Free World,” which focuses not only on the political commitment but also on the individual commitment to a TB-free world. WHO states, “An estimated 53 million lives were saved through TB diagnosis and treatment between 2000 and 2016.”
WiRED’s Tuberculosis Module, which is targeted to general audiences, contains information about the causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of the illness. TB is an airborne disease, and any level of bacterial contamination can infect a person. TB typically strikes the lungs, but can also appear in other areas of the body such as the spine or kidneys. Diagnostic tests examine saliva samples for TB and any drug-resistant strains of it. Drug resistant bacterial infection is a critical global health issue, because there are no effective cures. However, common strains of TB are curable and have many medication regimes. Educating more communities on the risks, prevention and treatments for TB can help eliminate the number of people affected.
In an effort to educate readers on health care, WIRED will continue to offer web articles on health observance days. We hope these observance day articles keep people’s health in mind at all times.
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