Tuesday, 24 February 2015

CONTROL AND TREATMENT OF COMMUNICABLE DISEASES



Various health policies have been formulated to curb the spread of Communicable diseases, also referred to as infectious infections. Societal practices such as overcrowding in the shopping centers, constant movement of people that leads to culmination of rural camps, habit of using the day care facilities service, and involvement in unsafe sexual practices. Controls of such diseases involve personal initiatives in maintaining high standard of hygiene and safe water treatment methods. A clean environment coupled with good health system forms the foundation of eradicating communicable diseases.  These diseases are mainly either vector-borne or water-borne.
Communicable diseases like Chicken Pox that the hostels K and L had are an outbreak of, need to be controlled to curb the spread to an epidemic level. The proposed or suggested interventions includes fields related to water and sanitation, hygiene, health care, and in other diseases like Chicken Pox, one should seek medical attention as soon as possible in as much as it is thought to affect each person at least once in a lifetime, of which it is believed that the earlier, the better. Other factors to be considered are the cost, implementation pace, feasibility of the program and its adherence to the human rights issues. The program should not be in conflict with the culture of the victims or the target populations. The program design usually includes the rapid assessment stage usually after the occurrence of some kind of disaster. It’s a period of data gathering and snap decision making. The in-depth assessment helps in comprehensive planning of the control program. At this stage, the background information of the affected population is sought together with the magnitude of the epidemic.  The program should include some long term plan on how to reduce the effect of such epidemics in case they re-occur.
The commonly applied strategies in controlling the outbreaks of infectious diseases are reduction of mortality rate due to proactive measures that ensures early detection and consequent treatment; another ideology is to encourage preventive activities which will in the long run reduce rampant spread of such diseases. These should be applied without much bureaucracy. Quick response is the principle to be adhered to incase of an outbreak. This helps in curbing the impending epidemic. The emergency program of immunization also plays a vital role in controlling the communicable diseases.
The implementation of the program calls for prioritizing of the intervention measures. Various measures used in deciding what to be carried first or last includes the cost, staff availability, extent of the problem, implementation technicalities.
The occurrence of natural disasters renders the victims vulnerable to communicable diseases. Calamities like floods, droughts, earthquakes and hurricanes occur annually around the world and they alter the disease patterns. The outbreak of communicable diseases doesn’t consider borders but rather spreads like bush fire if control measures are not applied immediately.
The goal of a good control program should be to prevent and reduce mortality and morbidity rates as well as the spread of the infectious diseases.  Isolation of the victims as seen on April 10th with a Chicken Pox patient is a violation of their right of access to medical care freely, freedom of movement and association are also infringed. Such people need our support for them to feel as part of the society, this enhance recovery or healing process.