What To Do Avoiding When Experiencing Flood

Flash floods can unfold in moments and wreak havoc. Surprisingly small amounts moving water can sweep you or your vehicle away. Here's what you need to know before, during and after a flood, since preparation can be critical and life-saving.

Major parts of the global part have experienced dangerous floods over the past few years, including some re cent part in Africa. 

Floods can happen in minutes to hours after a period of excessive rainfall or a sudden release of water from a dam failure.

Flash floods can roar through dry river beds miles away from where the heavy rain is falling. This makes them incredibly dangerous. These floods are sudden and fierce, with rapidly rising water that can cause severe damage and trigger mudslides.

The major kind of health risks that can emerge as a result of flood disasters and the actions that can be taken are as follows

Risks Factors From floods

Flood disasters result in different categories which pose dangers to health. This factors are as follows:

• Acute events: drowning and trauma
• Noncommunicable diseases: people with chronic health conditions may not be able to access health services or take the medication they need
• Healthcare infrastructure: damage or disruption to healthcare infrastructure and systems
• Mental health: anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder
• Infection

Damage to or disruption of environmental health infrastructure and services (water supply and sewage systems) increases the risk of water-borne and food-borne disease. 

The displacement of people and overcrowding that often results from flooding provides optimal conditions for outbreaks of respiratory and gastrointestinal illness. Contributing factors in such settings include poor standards of hygiene, close contact among people, poor sanitation, poor nutrition, and poor food safety.

There are four main kinds of infections: cutaneous; respiratory; gastrointestinal; and zoonotic (transmitted between animals and humans) or vector-borne (transmitted by the bite of an infected arthropod species such as mosquitoes or ticks).

Cutaneous infections: Skin and soft tissue infections can follow trauma, for example if someone is cut by a fallen branch of a tree while cleaning up after the floods. 

These infections are often caused by typical bacterial causes of skin and soft tissue infections; however, fungal infections may also occur.

Respiratory infections: Acute respiratory infections like coughs, colds, influenza and pneumonia are common following flood disasters. Disruption of housing and overcrowding increase the risk of sharing the bacteria and viruses that cause these illnesses.

Gastrointestinal disease: These include cholera, shigellosis and enteric fever. They are caused by taking in food or water that is contaminated with bacteria. The contamination often comes from the faeces of infected people.

Most people who are infected with the bacteria that cause cholera don’t develop symptoms. About 10% will get very sick with diarrhoea and can soon be severely dehydrated. 

If left untreated, cholera can result in death. Mild cases are treated with oral fluids. More severe cases may require intravenous fluids and appropriate antibiotics.

Symptoms of shigellosis, a bacterial infection, include watery or bloody diarrhoea (dysentery), fever, nausea and sometimes vomiting and abdominal cramps. Severe infection and high fever may cause seizures in young children. There can also be complications later.

Enteric fever has symptoms like fever, headache, abdominal pain, nausea, and constipation or diarrhoea.

Contaminated water can also contain other bacteria, viruses and parasites. Children are typically at increased risk of the infections these can cause. Symptoms include diarrhoea, vomiting and fever.