WORLD HEALTH DAY (7th,April) - Wage a war on Mosquitoes & all -Who should Die? You or the Mosquito?- You decide- Mosquiotes have already decided!

WORLD HEALTH DAY

7^TH,APRIL,2014

7^th,APRIL, every year,  is – “World Health Day”. 

It is celebrated all over the world under the guidance and sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO). Each year, WHO organizes international, regional and local events on the day, in relation to a particular theme. 

In 2012, the theme was "Good health adds life to years" and last year it was "Healthy heart beat, healthy blood pressure".

The theme for 2014's World Health Day is "Vector-borne diseases". The theme, also dubbed by the WHO as "Small bite, big threat", highlights dangers and threats from some of the most commonly known vectors - such as mosquitoes, sand flies, bugs, ticks and snails.

Vector-borne diseases - Fact sheet

Vector-borne diseases account for more than 17% of all infectious diseases, causing more than 1 million deaths annually.

More than 2.5 billion people in over 100 countries are at risk of contracting dengue alone.

Malaria causes more than 600 000 deaths every year globally, most of them children under 5 years of age.

Other diseases such as Chagas disease, leishmaniasis and schistosomiasis affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

Main vectors and diseases they transmit

Vectors are living organisms that can transmit infectious diseases between humans or from animals to humans. Many of these vectors are bloodsucking insects, which ingest disease-producing microorganisms during a blood meal from an infected host (human or animal) and later inject it into a new host during their subsequent blood meal.

Mosquitoes are the best known disease vector. Others include ticks, flies, sandflies, fleas, triatomine bugs and some freshwater aquatic snails.

(A)      Mosquitoes  :  (1) Aedes ( Dengue fever, Rift Valley fever,       Yellow fever, Chikungunya ); (2) Anopheles (Malaria); (3) Culex ( Japanese encephalitis, Lymphatic filariasis, West Nile fever) 

(B)      Sandflies ( Leishmaniasis,  Sandfly fever); 

(C) Ticks (Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Lyme disease, Relapsing fever or borreliosis, Rickettsial diseases, Tick-borne encephalitis,    Tularaemia); 

(D)      Triatomine bugs (American trypanosomiasis); 

(E)      Tsetse flies ( Sleeping sickness or African trypanosomiasis);

(F) Fleas (Plague transmitted by fleas from rats to humans,    Rickettsiosis) ; 

(G)      Black flies ( Onchocerciasis or river blindness);

(H)      Aquatic snails ( Schistosomiasis or bilharziasis)

So what shall we do with these VECTORS and the diseases they give us. Here are my suggestions :-

1.  First decide – who should survive and thrive in your house and your surroundings – Vectors or You and your loved ones? You must decide Now. Because, Mosquitoes etc have already decided !

2.  If you are overly sympathetic to vectors – understand that they are not overly sympathetic to you. You are their Food – It is not the other way.

3.  Vectors don’t just suck your blood- which is bad in itself. They inject into you harmful bacteria/virus, which give you deadly diseases.

4.  Vectors grow terribly fast. And, all of them have a single aim – your Blood!

5.  Killing Vectors is not optional; it is a MUST, it is a duty, if vectors have grown all around you. The Best thing is – to ensure that they don’t grow anywhere around you.

6.  What Lord Krishna told Arjuna in  Bhagavad Gita applies especially to VECTORS (in my view); They deserve to be Killed. So, Kill them; Don’t even leave their EGGS. It is misplaced sympathy. The last 2 sentences are my extension – not Krishna’s.

7.  Stagnant, dirty water is a great place for Vectors to live in. Don’t assume that the stagnant water is 2 meters away from your house. While the water doesn’t travel 2 metres to your house, all the vectors will travel - even if it is 20 metres or more. Ensure cleanliness of at least that much space around you.

8.  Trees are Health giving. But, use sprays etc with appropriate pesticides to keep them clean. Keep them Healthy.

9.  Our cooking place is a great Place for vectors to thrive. Usually, all of us keep a DUST BIN there and throw all cut / waste vegetables and other organic matter into them. Empty the Dust Bins at least 6 hours once. Let the Dust Bins be clean and free of dust especially at Night, when you sleep. That’s the time, when vectors want to travel from the dust bin to your bed side and have their feast.

10.             While WHO document doesn’t mention COCKROACH, I will include that too in my advice. There is never a single Cockroach in your house. If you spot one in your house, assume that a whole lot of them are there tucked in somewhere. If one is there now, in a month, there will be Hundreds/ thousands. Decide whether you want to kill/get rid of this one when you spot it – or wait until it becomes a hundred.

11.             If you catch one disease from a Mosquito, the Mosquito will then happily transmit it from you to all of your people in due time.

12.             So, what keeps you waiting?

PS :- I am more non-violent than Mahatma Gandhi – but killing vectors ,I believe, is totally NON-VIOLENT. It promotes, peace, love, compassion, Health, happiness, and all other Good things that we cherish.

-     Sarve Janaah Sukhino Bhavanthu

Always Yours friendly

= V.Vijayamohan