Water and Health | nursing homework essays

1) Reading:

I. Gasana J (2014) Water and Health. Air Water Borne Diseases 3: e129 (See pdf copy attached). http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2167-7719.1000e129

Infectious diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria, viruses and parasites are the most common and widespread health risk associated with drinking water. These diseases are usually classified according to the nature of the pathogen. However, a more useful way of classifying these diseases is according to the various aspects of the environment that human intervention can alter. These are 1) waterborne diseases, 2) Water-privation diseases, 3) Water-based diseases, 4) Water-related diseases, and 5) Water-dispersed infections. These diseases are mostly found in warm developing countries.

The chemical substances and constituents of drinking water are classified by UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) GEMS (Global Environment Monitoring System) [3] into three categories which are the following:

1) Substances (various metals, nitrates, cyanides) that exert an acute and/or chronic toxicity when consumed.

2) Genotoxic substances (synthetic organics, many chlorinated micro-organics, some pesticides, and arsenic) that cause adverse health effects such as carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, and birth defects.

3) Essential elements (fluoride, iodine, selenium) that are a mandatory part of dietary intake to sustain human health.

II.WHO Desalination Guidance – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mmvmCDNb7d3YC4DHfdVFrIOBjjlM_7uX/view?usp=sharing

According to this above WHO Desalination Guidance, saline sources are different from freshwater sources in that they always require a substantive treatment step. However, while the desalination process usually provides a significant barrier to both pathogens and chemical contaminants, this barrier is not necessarily absolute, and a number of issues could potentially have an impact on public health. Some of these are similar to the challenges encountered in most piped water systems, but others, such as those related to stabilizing and remineralizing the water to prevent it from being excessively aggressive, are different and therefore must be addressed within the context of a site-specific health risk management plan.

Kuwait and many more countries (close to the sea) use the Desalination Water Treatment Process. The seawater desalination plant process is to convert sea water into fresh water. First, seawater (raw water) is delivered by intake pump and sent into desalination plant. Then raw water is pre-treated before entering into SWRO (Sea Water Reverse Osmosis) system for there are many types of impurities in sea water, meeting requirements on RO (Reverse Osmosis) feed water. SWRO plant is basically composed of the following systems, including intake system, pre-treatment system, seawater desalination RO system, energy recovery device, chemical dosing system, clean-in-place (CIP) system and PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) controlling system.

2) Discussion

a) Discuss to what extent Kuwait and other countries follow through on the WHO Desalination Guidance.

b) Is there any room for improvement? Or do public health professionals have to worry about the use of desalinated water? How about the use of bottled water and /or water filter as alternatives? Provide the pros and cons.

Sample Solution