Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries, Case Study Example

The two cases cover infectious diseases experienced by population in developing countries. Guinea worm reduction covers 20 countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa while River blindness (Onchocerciasis) focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa (Nunn, 2002). When a person drinks stagnant water from a well or pod that is contaminated with tiny freshwater copepods carrying guinea worm larvae, they could get affected with these diseases. Health needs being addressed in fight against Guinea worm include; the surveillance that can sense each and every case in within 24 hours of the worm urgency, avoiding transfers from each worm by treatment, banding and cleaning constantly the affected areas in the skin until the germs is completely put away from the ski surface (MacMillan, 1995). This will ensure the drinking water is not contaminated and will help every user in daily life. Patience should also be advised to avoid wading the water, by ensuring wider access that can upgrade the standard drinking-water that is supplied to the community. Filtering the water is also one of the very important actions that should be taken in order to improve the health standards in the society (Nunn, 2002).

River blindness disease is caused by a worm, Onchocerca Volvulus which enters its human victim through the bite of an infected black fly. The best prevention efforts include personal protection measures against biting insects. This includes wearing insect repellants, wearing long sleeves and long pants during the day when blackflies bite and wearing permethrin-treated clothing (MacMillan, 1995). When someone drinks dirty water from a well or pod that is contaminated with tiny freshwater copepods carrying guinea worm larvae, they could get affected with these diseases. Just as stated earlier, filtering the water is one of the very important actions that should be taken in order to improve the health standards in the society.

Guinea worm eradication hard a fund of approximately 89 million dollars which was spent on the eradication program between 1987 and 1998. The vast majority of the funding during this period came from Global 2000, UNICEF and WHO. Toward the end of this period, funding began to slow (Nunn, 2002). In 2000, The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation donated 28.5 million dollars to the program which was a far greater sum of money than had been spent in any one year on the program prior to the World Bank. River blindness has a relatively inexpensive program. It operates with an annual cost of less than 1 dollar per protected person. Donors’ aid during the 28 year project totaled 600 dollars and had an annual return of 20 percent investment. The program has already saved a total of eight million healthy years of life, at a cost of about 250 million dollars. This is considered peanuts compared to what the western world are spending on healthcare.

Intervention on river blindness Control in 2002 had 40 million people in 11 countries been saved from infection and eye lesions, 600000 cases of blindness had been prevented and 25 million hectares of abandoned arable land had been reclaimed for settlement and agricultural production with an economic rate of return of 20 percent (Nunn, 2002). Since the African programmed for river blindness, 40 million people in 16 countries have been treated annually (MacMillan, 1995). Guinea worm has virtually has been eradicated by this program reducing the number of cases worldwide from approximately 3.5 million in 1986 to fewer than 5000 in 2008. In 1986 there were 20 endemic countries; in 2008 there were 6.

References

MacMillan, D. E. (1995). Sahel visions: Planned settlement and river blindness control in Burkina Faso. Tucson [u.a.: Univ. of Arizona Press. (pg 466-468)

Diseases and disorders. (2007). New York: Marshall Cavendish. (Pg 545)

World Health Organization. (1997). Vector control: Methods for use by individuals and communities. Geneva: World Health Organization. (Pg 124-125)

Nunn, J. F. (2002). Ancient Egyptian medicine. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. (Pg 16)