Saturday, January 30, 2010

Parasites and Sustainability

In just 16 hours of class we learned about over 40 parasites. We covered hosts, transmission and medication in everything from Plasmodium falciparum (malaria) to Wuchereria Bancrofti (elephantitis) and loads of everyday illnesses inbetween. Luckily, we had a Professor that also covered the socio-economic implications of parasites as well. Parasites don't distinguish between the developed and developing world, with large outbreaks of Cryptosporidium affecting cities such as Milwaukee (and, I will note, not every water treatment plant in the US can eliminate Cryps!).

But, as is commonly known, parasites have a particularly devastiting effect on impoverished areas with lack of access to proper sanitation, drinking water and medications. I list those three things in order of importance, because for the majority of parasites we covered in the course were passed through improper sanitation as well as lack of clean water. Medication is important to treat those infected and in usually to stop the spread of established diseases, but for the most part if we took the first two steps many diseases would not have the means to spread or even appear in the first place.

Possibly the worst part about these parasites as their impact on mental development (especially in children), productivity and overall quality of life. Areas where parasites spread tend to be impovershed, they do not have access to the proper facilties mentioned above. Then once infected, their children and families often have trouble finding the energy or capacity to do something about their situation, in some cases are physically unable to better their situation. This in turn leads to a cycle of poverty, parasites and lack of any method to get out, generation after generation. As Bill Gates recently pointed out, this cycle also contributes to overpopulation.

This brings me to the point of sustainability, or more properly sustainable development. The goal of sustainable development is to essentially to alleviate poverty without destroying the environment through western style consumption and infrastructure patterns. When looking at impovershed areas through the lens of Parasitology, it appears there could be a way to break the cycle of poverty without massive, expensive (economically and carbon wise), and ultimately unlikely infrastructure investments. This could be done through empowering local citizens with the means to combat disease utilizing local materials and detached or standalone sustainable solutions. This is already happening as was demonstrated in the course in the case of Tsetse fly traps maintained by locals, the easily constructable and safe VIP latrines, and this neat solar-powered water purifier.

Taking this a step further with the use of renewable energy, which can be implemented locally (and in the case of some wind turbines even mainly constructed locally) and now you have detached electricity to power communication devices such as laptops and cell phones. Now, suddenly, you can communicate health problems over the web to doctors in bigger cities and feel connected socially to the world at large. And, for parasites, you can improve disease surveillance to continuously updating and mapped outbreaks on the ground. Think about education access online as well!

Back to Bill Gates. One thing he mentioned was that as people improve economically and health wise, they start to have smaller families. This is seen again and again in developed countries. So if we improve health, sanitation and education we can start to tackle that elephant in the room of sustainability: overpopulation.

These are only some of the solutions, but the understanding of the links between health, development and sustainability are crucial if we are to make it out of the 21st century with the planet intact.



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Haiti

I've been meaning to put up a full post on Haiti and will once I am better educated about the situation and implications. For now you can check out the coverage and links to how you can help at AMSA's Global Pulse blog and Doctors Without Borders. As in every natural disaster, there is the opportunity to rebuild in a better, more sustainable way than was done in the first place. Check out some of the emerging green plans and ideas at Change.org

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