eW/FS/WE/001
A water borne disease is a disease that you can get from:
drinking polluted water
eating fruit that were rinsed with polluted water
eating with hands washed in polluted water
being in touch with contaminated water.
What are germs?
A germ is a common term to describe a very small living creature.
This creature is so small that we can only see it through a
microscope. These creatures can be bacteria, viruses,
fungi or protozoa.
A protozoan is an animal that consists of only one cell.
There are good and bad germs. The bad germs make you sick.
When a germ makes you sick, it is called a pathogen.
How do germs cause diarrhea?
Suppose you have picked up some germ by washing your
hands with contaminated water.
You transfer the germs from your hands to your sandwich,
and then you swallow them.
The germs now have an ideal environment in your tummy,
and they reproduce rapidly.
They also produce toxins that are very irritating to your
tummy.
These irritations have the unhappy effect of causing your
tummy to lose water. This is diarrhea.
Diarrhea often leaves other systems, like your kidneys and liver,
without enough water to function properly, a condition called
dehydration. One can die of dehydration.
Some of the most common water borne diseases are Cholera,
Dysentery, Bilharzias and Typhoid fever.
Bilharzias parasites can penetrate your skin and reproduce in your
body. When you urinate in the water you spread the next phase of
the parasite to the water again.
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Contact: ewisa@wamsys.co.za or ewisa@wisa.co.za
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