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Health Guide
Compiled by Shanika Sriyananda

Rapid increase of water-borne diseases

With the recent floods in different parts of the country and signs of an outbreak of water-borne diseases, the Health Ministry warns the public to stick to good sanitation practices, which are the only ways of curtailing the rapid spread of bowel diseases.

According to the Epidemiological Unit (EU), wells and other drinking water sources have been polluted with floodwaters and overflowing septic tanks which could lead to an outbreak of water-borne and vector-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, typhoid, hepatitis, dengue, malaria, Japanese encephalitis. Leptospirosis, caused by rats are on the increase.

"Strict hygienic practices should be followed after floods", a medical officer of the EU said. The EU also warns of a possible increase in dengue and filaria. The health experts stress the need of cleaning the environments to destroy mosquito breeding spots.

The highest number of cases (3500) were reported from Colombo District in 2004 and the total number of cases were 15,223 with 88 deaths. Over 4,852 people were infected with dengue this year and 25 people have died of the disease so far.

According to epidemiologists, compared to last year's figures, there is a considerable reduction in the number of dengue cases reported this year.

"But the present rainy season rings alarm bells of an impending threat if the public do not take and interest to clean their environments", he said. Meanwhile, Dr. Prabba Palihawadane, acting Director of the EU said that they have already directed the Public Health Inspectors to carry out awareness programs in the areas under threat. Steps have been taken to purify water resources in the flood hit areas with the help of public participation. (SS)

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The public in the flood affected areas are advised to take the following measures:

Drink boiled cool water wherever possible.

Avoid eating raw vegetables and green leaves if you cannot be sure that these food items are not contaminated.

Ensure that drinking water such as wells are cleaned and the water is chlorinated before using, after the flood water recedes (seek the help of the Public Health Inspector in this regard).

Make every effort to use a latrine situated at a high elevation if any latrine that has been used earlier is under water.

Seek medical advice from a qualified medical practitioner if you or any member of your family develop any symptoms related to diarrhoea, dysentery or leptospirosis.

Haphazard garbage disposal part of our culture

by Dr. (Mrs) Ajantha Perera

The haphazard disposal of garbage has now become almost part of our culture.

The local authority heads, who generally discuss on privatising the solid waste management systems in Sri Lanka with foreign delegations in luxury hotels end up dumping garbage in private land owned preferably by a relative or a close friend.

Huge sums of money are paid to the landowner for allowing the local authority to dump garbage. Perhaps because of the close relationship between the landowner and the head of the local authority, no officer speaks against the state of the dump sites.

Only during the heavy rains the officers seem to wake up.

They run around telling people that no garbage can be collected. It is sad and inhumane to watch how the leachate from the dumps is flowing into the nearby houses.

No drains are cut around the dump to collect the leachate and to ensure that rain water does not reach the neighbourhood.

While all this is going on we can often see the middle class ladies getting off their vehicles to dump their precious garbage bag yet again into piles of garbage on the roadside. No one even want to approach them to return the gift.

This nation, once ruled by brave, wise kings has now become a nation full of lazy, selfish, greedy people.

Hoping yet for the best because it is our nation, here are a few things you could do to lessen this problem:

Make a round compost bin in your garden using wooden poles, put all your biodegradable waste into it. Cover it on the top so that no rain water gets into it.

If there is a program to collect waste paper, glass and plastic in your area, separate your waste at home and give it to those people.

Otherwise please do not throw it on the roadside, rather burn it within your garden. Do not allow any type of hospital waste to be dumped in your area.

Purify the well water using chlorine or charcoal

Ensure that a good drain system is in place around the sites where garbage is deposited.

This must be done by the local authority.

Holistic healing :

Improper diet aggravates Asthma

As it is explained Asthma is an abnormal, lung condition characterised by difficulty in breathing. People with asthma have extra sensitive or hyper-responsive airways. The airways react by narrowing or obstructing when they become irritated.

This makes it difficult for the air to move in and out (It is actually difficult for the air to move out than inside). This narrowing or obstruction can cause one or a combination of the following symptoms like wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath and chest tightness.

The intensity of these symptoms depends on the extent to which the affliction has developed mild, acute or chronic. Further symptoms of Asthma are airway inflammation (meaning that the airways in the lungs become red, swollen and narrow), Bronchoconstriction (meaning that the muscles that encircle the airways tighten or go into spasm).

The main causes are increasing air pollution, stress, life style and lack of proper nutrition, genetic orientation and specific composition of the person. Allergy is the main cause of Asthma and other respiratory tract ailments.

The specific allergic reaction for Asthma is Type 1 hypersensitivity reaction. Type I hypersensitivity reactions (IgE mediated allergic reactions) are caused by allergens (specific exogenous antigens), e.g. pollen, house dust, animal dandruff, molds, etc. Allergic diseases in which type I reactions play a significant role include asthma, eczema (atopic dermatitis), urticaria, allergic rhinitis and anaphylaxis.

Allergy and its offshoot Asthma are maladies of modern lifestyle and environment, which has made us, deviate so far away from Nature. Nothing so drastically reduces the quality of living of the person like Asthma. Allergy & Asthma are warnings that nature gives us. It is an indication that our lifestyle - way of living, way of eating, our surrounding atmosphere, environment etc. is not in tandem with nature.

It is a warning that our respiratory system and body are not comfortable with what it is exposed to our body's immune system and is smelling danger when in contact with external atmosphere, so it is over-responding and becoming hypersensitive triggering allergic reaction.

While we may live in an ultramodern computer age with unprecedented material prosperity, our human body is essentially the same since hundreds of thousands of years. But conditions that prevail today have weaned us so far away from natural lifestyle that it has become too much for our body to handle this maladjustment reflect as ailments like allergy and Asthma.

None of the modern medicines can/or actually intend to heal a person with Asthma. In almost all the cases the person is made to take an assortment of medicines and steroid sprays lifelong. You may merely see the sales chart of any Drug manufacturing company in the field of "respiratory systems medicines" to confirm this - The Tens of Billions of dollars of sales and profit of these companies will stand as a testimony.

Asthma can never be cured or controlled by pumping our body with factory-made medicines; Laboratory designed Molecules, artificially made chemicals and steroids. It is the artificial environment like this that caused Asthma in the first place.

The best way to tackle allergy and Asthma and live a healthy life is to live in tandem with nature. It will be best to go in for natural ways of healing allergy and Asthma. Surely a significant healing for Asthma and allergy is possible without any side effects - with certain combination of herbs. The following section describes the classic Ayurveda approaches used to eliminate toxin buildup, stabilize the nervous system, enliven the healing ability of the body and manage stress.

Diet, Nutrition and Digestion: Asthma can be aggravated through improper diet. For example, some foods can make Vata highly active or clog the physiology, thereby worsening many of the symptoms of asthma.

Consultations with Ayurveda Health Consultants, along with daily educational meetings, will help you understand which foods are the most clogging and obstructing to circulation and which are the hardest to digest. These foods have the potential to create toxins (undigested food not only clogs the channels in the body but actually becomes toxic). Foods that are easily digested create nutrients that are then assimilated into the tissues to rebuild their strength, will be recommended.

Your Ayurveda Health Consultants will also provide programs to improve digestion, an important step in overcoming asthma. Ayurveda culinary knowledge of foods in ways that create maximum nourishment for the body will help to prevent incomplete digestion and clogged circulation. In summary, improper nutrition can create and aggravate asthma, but proper nutrition can go a long way toward curing and preventing it.

Stress Management and Improved Mental and Emotional Function: Many individuals experience that asthma is often worsened by heightened stress, anxiety and mental fatigue. This is due to hormonal changes and other biochemical responses to stress that can aggravate the nervous system, create pain and depress the immune response.

The sleep disturbance that is often created by symptoms of asthma increases fatigue, which increases one's susceptibility to stress, which in turn aggravates the asthma condition. A downward spiral is created. Ayurveda Health Consultants recommend practice of the Meditation techniques for removing the stress component of fatigue, pain, insomnia and other symptoms of asthma. Published scientific articles outline the effectiveness of the meditation practice for both pain relief and insomnia.

Meditation has a wealth of scientific research verifying its effect on reducing many of the mental and stress factors influencing asthma. Research shows it creates virtually the opposite physiological response that stress does and helps the body recover more quickly from stressful stimuli. Practice of Meditation twice a day is an ideal mental approach to the problems of asthma.

Lifestyle and daily routine: One of the most important factors for balancing Vata and keeping the natural cleansing processes strong is to have a lifestyle that does not disturb natural bodily rhythms. When we eat, sleep and exercise in constantly fluctuating and disturbing patterns, the body loses its natural balancing cycles and cannot cleanse or heal itself as effectively.

Therefore, regularity in our daily routine can be extremely effective in reducing Vata imbalances. Improper lifestyle can create the Vata imbalance as the basis of asthma and disrupt the body's natural cleansing cycles. Our Ayurveda Health Consultant will review your daily routine and provide the information you need to help create a daily schedule that will actually increase balance in your nervous system and aid in healing your body.

Ayurveda herbs and reduction in free radicals: During your consultation, our Ayurveda Health Consultants select the appropriate herbal formulas for aiding the healing process, strengthening digestion and helping the body purify itself. Free radicals are highly irritating to the physiology and their presence creates and worsens many disorders, including asthma.

When appropriate, our Ayurveda Health Consultants can recommend Ayurveda herbs that research has shown to be powerful anti-oxidants and free radical scavengers.

Ayurveda herbal preparations have been shown to have 1000 times more powerful anti-oxidant properties than vitamin C or E. These herbs can also have a holistic influence of balancing and nourishing the entire physiology. Traditional Ayurveda theory says that herbs are most effective after a person completes an internal cleansing program.

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