Common diseases in the rainy season and how to prevent them

The rainy season not only causes colds and flu, but also increases the risk of many other health problems, especially infectious diseases. Here, easyhealthylive.com will list the common diseases of the rainy season, the best ways to prevent them and maintain your health to get through this severe weather.

Climate change and a less healthy diet can weaken the immune system. Especially in the rainy season, the ability to spread harmful bacteria and viruses is higher, making us more susceptible to many other infectious diseases and skin diseases.

In addition to focusing on improving nutrition and immunity, you should pay attention to the following ways to prevent common diseases in the rainy season to keep yourself and your family healthy.

Common diseases in the rainy season and how to prevent them

1. Typhoid disease

Typhoid, or typhoid fever, is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Salmonella typhi. When bacteria enter the body, they reproduce continuously and spread in the blood. Typhoid fever can be life-threatening if not treated promptly.

Symptom: Persistent fever, fatigue, headache, nausea, abdominal pain, and constipation or diarrhea.

Transmission route: Bacteria can be spread when food or water is contaminated with pathogens from other patients. Especially during storms and floods, poor sanitation will increase the risk of typhoid outbreaks.

How to prevent illness:

• Drink clean water, eat cooked food
• Ensuring food hygiene and safety, living environment and food processing
• Limit eating out
• Wash your hands often

2. Cholera

Cholera is an acute infectious diarrhea caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.

Symptom: Watery diarrhea, which can cause dehydration and lead to death if not treated promptly.

Transmission route: Cholera is transmitted through food or water contaminated with this bacteria. The lack of clean water and the effects of sanitation facilities that often occur during floods can increase the likelihood of disease transmission.

How to prevent illness:

• Eat cooked, drink boiling
• Ensure food safety
• Personal hygiene and frequent contact surfaces

Wash your hands often to help eliminate the bacteria that cause rainy season

3. Hepatitis A

Hepatitis A is a highly contagious liver infection caused by Hepatovirus A (HAV).

Symptom: Fatigue, fever, loss of appetite, upset stomach, nausea, diarrhea, dark urine, yellow skin and eyes.

Transmission route: The virus is transmitted when you drink contaminated water or eat food or have direct contact with an infected person.

How to prevent illness:

• Improve food safety
• Hepatitis A vaccination
• Regular personal hygiene: Wash hands before eating, after going to the toilet…

4. Malaria

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by the Plasmodium parasite, which can be life-threatening. Malaria is the most common condition that usually occurs after the flood season.

Symptom: Fever, fatigue, vomiting and headache. In more severe cases, the disease can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death.

Transmission route: Bitten by an infected female Anopheles mosquito.

How to prevent illness:

• Prevent mosquito bites: Sleep in bed nets, use insect sprays, anti-mosquito lights…
• Keep the place clean, avoid moisture or stagnant water

5. Dengue fever

Dengue fever is an infection caused by the dengue virus that can lead to a flu-like condition and cause serious complications and death if the patient develops severe dengue.

The incidence of dengue fever is gradually increasing globally and increases faster in the rainy season. It is one of the leading causes of serious illness and death in both children and adults.

Symptom: Fever with nausea, rash, eye and musculoskeletal pain.

Transmission route: The virus can be transmitted by the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

How to prevent illness:

• Luminescence around the house. Sanitize the living environment clean, do not stagnate water to avoid breeding larvae
• Prevent mosquito bites: Use insect repellent, mosquito repellent incense, mosquito nets when sleeping…

You can use mosquito repellent products such as essential oil lamps, mosquito sprays, insect repellent creams, etc.

6. Hypothermia

Hypothermia is a medical condition that requires emergency care when the body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature (below 35^oC). Children and the elderly are more at risk of hypothermia during the flood season.

Symptom: Depends on the severity of hypothermia.

• In mild degree: Patients may feel dizzy, dizzy, shivering.
• Moderate: The patient will stutter, increase the risk of confusion and reduce reflexes.
• At a severe level: Cold inflammation of the skin may occur, hallucinations, decreased reflexes, fixed dilated pupils, low blood pressure…

How to prevent illness:

• Gentle exercise
• Eat right to maintain body temperature
• Wear dry and warm clothes

7. Skin disease

Being exposed to rain water, dirty water often and sometimes having to stay in water for a long time due to moving on the street will make you more susceptible to many skin diseases such as:

• Eczema: Because of exposure to high humidity during the rainy season, the skin tends to lose its ability to retain moisture and turn blue. The skin is prone to dryness, itching, redness and blistering. At this time, you should apply salt or coconut oil to soothe the skin, prioritize wearing cotton clothes to help the skin breathe and reduce irritation.
• Scabies: Exposure to contaminated water increases the risk of developing scabies, a contagious disease caused by parasitic ticks. You will feel discomfort because of the itching and rash on the skin. Ideally, you should go to a dermatologist to get the right treatment, to avoid serious illness or spread to people around.
• Toenail fungus: Itchy feet, cracked or discolored toenails are common symptoms of fungal infections when you are often exposed to rain or flood water. Although not too serious, fungal infections of the toes are contagious. Therefore, you should limit sharing clothes and shoes and should clean them regularly, keep your feet dry and clean.
• Black fungusWhen the climate is humid and rainy, the skin is prone to the appearance of round red patches on the neck, armpits or soles of the feet. That is a symptom of ringworm. This disease is easily spread to other parts of the body through contact. Therefore, you should keep your skin clean and do not share personal items with others.

8. Respiratory disease

Common diseases such as sore throat, respiratory infection, flu will be more likely to occur in the rainy season when humidity is high, temperature and immunity of the body is reduced. Not to mention at the present time, the COVID-19 epidemic is raging and more contagious than ever.

Wear a mask and wash your hands often to limit the spread of respiratory diseases

How to prevent illness:

• Keep warm and maintain body temperature
• Complete nutritional supplement
• Wear a mask and wash your hands often
• Limit contact with people with respiratory symptoms
• Go to the doctor when you have symptoms for timely treatment

9. Eye disease

Water pollution, increased exposure to dust and dirty water can affect eye health. Therefore, during the rainy season, the eyes are often prone to lacrimal gland inflammation, pink eye, blepharitis …

How to prevent illness:

• Use clean water to clean your eyes and body
• Wash your hands often and avoid touching your eyes
• Do not share towels with others
• Use eye drops as directed

In addition to the common diseases in the rainy season mentioned above, the reduced immunity is one of the biggest causes of many health problems, especially including digestive diseases. Therefore, you should pay attention to how to prevent diseases and apply more tips to maintain health in the rainy season below.

How to stay healthy during the rainy season

1. Limit exposure to polluted water

The rainy season has begun, you should prepare enough umbrellas or raincoats, rain boots depending on the means of transport to keep your body dry, limit exposure to or soak up rain or dirty water for too long.

Protecting your body in this way will not only help you avoid colds, but also prevent skin diseases as well as water-borne diseases.

Prepare umbrella, raincoat or rain boots before moving in the rainy season

2. Maintain personal and environmental hygiene

We always have to maintain personal hygiene, but in the rainy season you need to pay more attention to hygiene. Try to wash your hands often to remove dirt and harmful bacteria, effectively preventing infectious diseases.

Use personal items for yourself, do not share or borrow / lend to avoid spreading disease. You should also wear a mask and have little contact with people showing signs of illness during the flood season.

In addition, keeping the living environment clean is also a factor that needs to be taken care of to limit bacteria and mosquitoes that spread disease. Clean up around the house, limit standing water and maintain a clean and airy space.

3. Enhance immunity

The rainy season is the perfect time for viruses and bacteria to grow and high humidity, which increases the risk of infectious diseases. To maintain health, you need to improve the body’s immunity to limit disease.

Try to choose the right foods in the rainy season, make sure to get enough vitamins and minerals needed by the body. In addition, drinking water regularly and exercising regularly will also help the body maintain a healthier state. Do not forget to pay attention to eating cooked, drinking boiling water and keeping food hygiene and safety during the flood season, preventing many diseases, especially digestive diseases.

4. Prioritize the addition of antioxidants

To prevent colds, flu and inflammatory diseases, supplementing with foods rich in antioxidants is one of the most effective natural remedies.

You should choose foods containing vitamin C, vitamin E and other antioxidants for your daily menu. For example, for vitamin C, citrus fruits, strawberries, spinach, kale and broccoli … will help the body increase resistance, fight inflammation and recover faster.

5. Keep yourself warm

During the rainy season, it is inevitable to get rain a few times. If you don’t want to get sick, after getting in the rain, you should change your clothes, take a warm bath and clean your body to remove dirt and disease-causing bacteria.

Using hot drinks with added herbs like ginger, turmeric, mint … or eating hot soup can protect and help warm up the body.

Wear suitable clothes and drink hot drinks to keep your body from getting sick

In addition, besides wearing protective gear such as a raincoat to avoid getting wet, in other cases, you should choose clothes with airy, soft materials such as cotton or choose dry, soft and enough clothes to keep your body warm. body.

What to do to recover after the stormy season?

Once the house is flooded, exposed to rain and flood water, you should pay attention to cleaning to have a safe living environment and protect health after the storm has passed.

• Wear tight protective clothing during cleaning
• Start cleaning each place, avoid traveling a lot if it’s still flooded
• Wash, disinfect and bandage immediately if there is a wound
• Wash your hands often: before eating, after going to the toilet or coming into contact with dirty water
• Prevent flies, mosquitoes, snakes: Use mosquito nets, insect repellents, clean up puddles and install barriers if there are many snakes
• Prepare clean water for domestic use, boil or disinfect water and store it in a clean place for use
• Clean walls, floors and kitchen utensils with boiling water or a diluted chlorine bleach solution
• Wash clothes with warm water or higher and hang to dry
• Discard food that has been in contact with flood water

During the stormy season, the level of impact and damage is extremely difficult to control. Therefore, having prepared weather prevention and response measures as shared by easyhealthylive.com will help you maintain your health, limit disease, and get through the storm season safely.

Reference source

Flooding and communicable diseases fact sheet. https://www.who.int/disease-flood . Access date: October 20, 2020

Common Monsoon Diseases Prevention Tips. https://www.indushealthplus.com/common-monsoon-diseases-prevention-tips.html. Access date: October 20, 2020

5 Tips to Stay Healthy During Rainy Season. https://herbana.id/news/5-tips-to-stay-healthy-during-rainy-season. Access date: October 20, 2020