Broadly speaking, we can combine the water-related diseases in different categories: The one due to water polluted by human waste :

  • diarrhea: 6 000 deaths / day;
  • cholera;
  • hepatitis;
  • typhoid fever and paratyphoid;
  • polio.

The one due to water polluted by chemical waste :
  • fluorosis;
  • arsenic;
  • those due to nitrates;
  • those due to fertilizers used in intensive agriculture.
Diseases due to water support :
  • those due to Platyhelminthes (flatworms);
  • those due to némathelminthes (round worms);
  • bilharzia (which affects 200 million people).
Diseases related to water :
  • Malaria;
  • dengue.
Diseases due towater shortage :
  • trachoma;
  • water stress.

For further informations, you can check the WHO : which describes various water-related diseases. Thus, in many parts of the world, diseases related to wetlands represent a threat to human health and the most frequently found are:

  • malaria, spread by mosquitoes breeding in the wetland;
  • diarrhea (including cholera) which development is promoted by sewage. In Africa, Asia and parts of the Americas, other diseases represent a major morbidity (mainly affected are children under five years), including schistosomiasis, Japanese encephalitis, filariasis, onchocerciasis, etc..

As an example, here is the geographic distribution of three water-related diseases: malaria, dengue and Japanese encephalitis.



Previous Top