Cryptosporiodiosis is a disease affecting the intestines of mammals that is caused by Cryptosporidium, a protozoan parasite in the phylum Apicomplexa. It is spread through the faecal-oral route.

Symptoms appear from two to ten days after infection and last for up to two weeks or so. As well as watery diarrhoea there is often stomach pains or cramps and a low fever. Some individuals are asymptomatic but are still infective and thus can pass on the infection to others. Even after symptoms have finally subsided that individual is still infective for some weeks.

Despite not being identified until 1976 it is one of the most common waterborne diseases and is found worldwide.

Primary source : http://www.lenntech.com/library/diseases
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera

Arsenicosis is a chronic illness resulting from drinking water with high levels of arsenic over a long period of time (such as from 5 to 20 years). It is also known as arsenic poisoning. The WHO recommends a limit of 0.01 mg/l of arsenic in drinking water.

It results in various health effects including skin problems, skin cancer, cancers of the bladder, kidney and lung, and diseases of the blood vessels of the legs and feet, and possibly also diabetes, high blood pressure and reproductive disorders.
Natural arsenic contamination is a cause for concern in many countries of the world including Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, China, India, Mexico, Thailand, and US. Because of the delayed health effects, poor reporting, and low levels of awareness in some communities, the extent of the adverse health problems caused by arsenic in drinking water is unclear and not well documented.

Primary source : http://www.lenntech.com/library/diseases
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera
Source : http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/cholera/en/

Ascariasis is an infection of the small intestine caused by the roundworm Ascaris lumbricoides.

As larval stages travel through the body, they may cause visceral damage, peritonitis and inflammation, enlargement of the liver or spleen, toxicity, and pneumonia. A heavy worm infestation may cause nutritional deficiency; other complications, sometimes fatal, include obstruction of the bowel by a bolus of worms (observed particularly in children), obstruction of bile or pancreatic duct.

Children are infected more often than adults, the most common age group being 3-8 years. The infection is likely to be more serious if the nutrition is poor. Eating uncooked food grown in contaminated soil or irrigated with inadequately treated wastewater is a frequent avenue of infection.


Roughly 1.5 billion individuals are infected with this worm. The disease is found worldwide, with greatest frequency in tropical and subtropical regions, and in any areas with inadequate sanitation.

Primary source : http://www.lenntech.com/library/diseases
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera
Source : http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/cholera/en/

Botulism is an acute poisoning resulting from ingestion of food containing toxins produced by the bacillus Clostridium botulinum. This bacterium can grow only in an anaerobic atmosphere, such as that found in canned foods; botulism is then almost always caused by preserved foods that have been improperly processed. Person to person transmission of botulism does not occur.
Classic symptoms of botulism occur between 12-36 hours after uptake of the botulinum toxin, but they can occur as early as 6 hours or as late as 10 days. They are not caused by the organism itself, but by the toxin that the bacterium releases.
Incidence of botulism is low, but the mortality rate is high if treatment is not immediate and proper. The disease can be fatal in 5 to 10% of cases.The symptoms usually include dry mouth, difficulty swallowing, slurred speech, muscle weakness, double vision, vertigo, vomiting, and severe diarrhoea, along with a progressive muscle paralysis. If untreated, these symptoms may progress to cause paralysis of the arms, legs, trunk, and respiratory muscles. There is no fever and no loss of consciousness.

Botulism is a relatively rare disease. Worldwide, food-borne botulism is the most commonly reported form, but the United States experiences a higher incidence of infant botulism. In the US an average of 110 cases of botulism are reported each year. Infant botulism is possibly under-reported worldwide because it is a relatively recent discovery and diagnosis can be difficult.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs270/en/
Picture:
http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/germs/botulism.htm

In medicine hepatitis is any disease featuring inflammation of the liver. Two of the viruses that cause hepatitis (hepatitis A and E) can be transmitted through water, food and from person to person. Hygiene is therefore important in their control.
The illness starts with an abrupt onset of fever, body weakness, loss of appetite, nausea and abdominal discomfort, followed by jaundice within a few days.

The disease may range from mild (lasing 1-2 weeks) to severe disabling disease (lasting several months).

Both hepatitis A and E are found worldwide. Hepatitis A is particularly frequent in countries with poor sanitary and hygienic conditions (in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America). Countries with economies in transition and some regions of industrialized countries where sanitary conditions are sub-standard are also high affected (southern and eastern Europe and some parts of the Middle East).

Primary source : http://www.lenntech.com/library/diseases
Source : http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/hepatitis/en/
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis

In medicine hepatitis is any disease featuring inflammation of the liver. Two of the viruses that cause hepatitis (hepatitis A and E) can be transmitted through water, food and from person to person. Hygiene is therefore important in their control.
The illness starts with an abrupt onset of fever, body weakness, loss of appetite, nausea and abdominal discomfort, followed by jaundice within a few days.

The disease may range from mild (lasing 1-2 weeks) to severe disabling disease (lasting several months).

Both hepatitis A and E are found worldwide. Hepatitis A is particularly frequent in countries with poor sanitary and hygienic conditions (in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America). Countries with economies in transition and some regions of industrialized countries where sanitary conditions are sub-standard are also high affected (southern and eastern Europe and some parts of the Middle East).

Primary source : http://www.lenntech.com/library/diseases
Source : http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/hepatitis/en/
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis

Giardiasis is an infection of the small intestine by a protozoan, Giardia lamblia. It is spread via the faecal-oral route, most commonly by eating food contaminated by the unwashed hands of an infected person or by drinking groundwater polluted by the faeces of infected animals.

About two thirds of infected individuals develop no symptoms. Symptoms, when present, occur one to three days after infection and consist of diarrhoea, flatulence, and abdominal cramps, often accompanied by weight loss. In some cases the infection becomes chronic.
Chronic disease includes severe diarrhoea, gas in stomach, allergy, malnutrition, and stunted growth.

Giardiasis has traditionally been considered a tropical disease, but it is becoming more common in developed countries, especially among gay men and among groups of very young children in close contact with each other.

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the feces of an infected person (even an asymptomatic one). The severity of the diarrhea and vomiting can lead to rapid dehydration and electrolyte imbalance and death in some cases. The primary treatment is with oral rehydration solution (ORS) to replace water and electrolytes, and if this is not tolerated or doesn't provide quick enough treatment, intravenous fluids can also be used. Antibiotics are beneficial in those with severe disease to shorten the duration and severity. Worldwide it affects 3–5 million people and causes 100,000–130,000 deaths a year as of 2010[update]. Cholera was one of the earliest infections to be studied by epidemiological methods.

Typhoid and paratyphoid enteric fever are acute, generalized infections caused by Salmonella typhi and Salmonella paratyphoid respectively.
The main sources of infection are contaminated water or milk and, especially in urban communities, food handlers who are carriers. Their germs are passed in the faeces and urine of infected people. People become infected after eating food or drinking beverages that have been handled by a person who is infected or by drinking water that has been contaminated by sewage containing the bacteria.

Once the bacteria enter the person’s body they multiply and spread from the intestines, into the bloodstream.
The symptoms of typhoid appear 10 to 14 days after infection; they can be mild or severe and include high fever, rose-colored spots on the abdomen and chest, diarrhoea or constipation, and enlargement of the spleen and liver. In untreated patients complications may be numerous, affecting practically every body system, and can even include perforation of the intestine with haemorrhage. Complications account for the mortality rate of 7% to 14%.

The annual incidence of typhoid is estimated to be about 17 million cases worldwide. Typhoid and paratyphoid fevers are common in less-industrialized countries, principally owing to they problem of unsafe drinking water, inadequate sewage disposal and flooding.

Typhoid and paratyphoid enteric fever are acute, generalized infections caused by Salmonella typhi and Salmonella paratyphoid respectively.
The main sources of infection are contaminated water or milk and, especially in urban communities, food handlers who are carriers. Their germs are passed in the faeces and urine of infected people. People become infected after eating food or drinking beverages that have been handled by a person who is infected or by drinking water that has been contaminated by sewage containing the bacteria.

Once the bacteria enter the person’s body they multiply and spread from the intestines, into the bloodstream.
The symptoms of typhoid appear 10 to 14 days after infection; they can be mild or severe and include high fever, rose-colored spots on the abdomen and chest, diarrhoea or constipation, and enlargement of the spleen and liver. In untreated patients complications may be numerous, affecting practically every body system, and can even include perforation of the intestine with haemorrhage. Complications account for the mortality rate of 7% to 14%.

The annual incidence of typhoid is estimated to be about 17 million cases worldwide. Typhoid and paratyphoid fevers are common in less-industrialized countries, principally owing to they problem of unsafe drinking water, inadequate sewage disposal and flooding.

Malaria is the world’s most important parasitic disease transmitted from one person to another through the bite of female Anopheles mosquitoes, which breed in fresh or occasionally brackish water.

Its symptoms are at the onset of malaria, bouts of chills (ague) and fever lasting several hours and occurring every three or four days. If the disease is not treated, the spleen and the liver become enlarged, anaemia develops, and jaundice appears. General debility, anaemia, or clogging of the vessels of cerebral tissues by affected red blood cells can be followed by death.

Today, malaria occurs mostly in tropical and subtropical countries, particularly in Africa south of the Sahara, South-East Asia and the forest fringe zones in South America.

Polio (infantile paralysis) is a communicable disease, which is categorized as a disease of civilization. Polio spreads through human-to-human contact, usually entering the body through the mouth due to faecally contaminated water or food.

The disease is usually fatal if the nerve cells in the brain are attacked (bulbar poliomyelitis), causing paralysis of essential muscles, such as those controlling swallowing, heartbeat, and respiration.

There is no specific drug for treatment. For reasons not clearly understood, some people who have had severe polio experience post polio syndrome, a condition in which new weakness and pain occurs years later in previously affected muscles.

Polio cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated more than 350,000 cases to 1919 in 2003. The reduction is the result of the global effort to eradicate the disease. The seven polio-endemic countries/areas, from highest to lowest risk of ongoing transmission beyond mid-2003 are northern India, northern Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Niger.