How to makewater safe for drinking and cooking?

Surface water and water from leaking pipes and open cisterns and wells may be contaminated with

cholera and other germs. This water should be carefully treated before drinking! There are different ways to treat surface water or other water sources that are likely to be contaminated. The quickest ways are boiling, bleaching, and adding lime or lemon. No matter how it is treated it should be settled and filtered first, or the treatment may not work.

1.Settle and filter the water.

• L et water settle until solids have settled out and water is more-or-less clear.

• Pour water through a filter made of clean fabric or a sand and charcoal filter. To use a fabric filter: Fold clean sari cloth 4 times and stretch or tie it over the mouth of a clean water jar. Pour water slowly into the jar through the cloth. After using the cloth, wash it and leave it in the sun to dry, or disinfect the cloth with bleach to kill germs. Boil or add bleach. If you have no bleach, use lemon or lime.

2.Boil or add bleach. If you have no bleach, use lemon or lime.

Boiling

• Bring water to a rapid boil for at least 1 minute.

• Pour water into a clean container to cool.

Use of bleach

Because household bleach is the most common form of chlorine, this chart shows how to disinfect water with household bleach. Household bleach may have different amounts of chlorine. Most common are 3.5% and 5%. The easiest way to measure the amount of bleach needed is to first make a mother solution (about 1% chlorine) and then add this solution to the water you want to disinfect.

First prepare the mother solution:

1. Add 1 cup of bleach to a clean, empty beer bottle.

2. Fill the bottle with clean water.

3. Shake the bottle for 30 seconds.

4. Let it sit for 30 minutes. Your mother solution is ready.

Add these amounts of the mother solution to clear water and wait at least 30 minutes before drinking the water. If the water is cloudy, you need twice as much of the bleach solution.

Use of lime or lemon

(This method will not kill allgerms, but is safer than notreatment at all and can prevent many cases of cholera)

• Add the juice of 1 lime or lemon per liter of drinking water, to kill cholera germs.

• Pour water into a clean container.

3. Keep water containers clean.

• Make sure the water storage container stays

clean! Do not put dirty containers, hands or

anything else in the water container. Pour it off

into clean cups for use.

How to treat CHOLERA?

The most important treatment for cholera is

oral rehydration. Except in severe cases, antibiotics will not help at all. When a person has watery diarrhea or diarrhea and vomiting, do not wait for signs of dehydration. Act quickly.

Give lots of liquids to drink such as a thin cereal porridge or gruel, soup, water or rehydration drink.

Keep giving food. As soon as the sick person can eat, give frequent feedings of foods he likes. To babies, keep giving breast milk often — and before other drinks.

Rehydration drink helps to prevent or treat dehydration. It does not cure cholera or diarrhea, but may give enough time for the illness to go away by itself.

How to prevent Cholera?

Cholera can be prevented through careful sanitation, careful use and treatment of

water before drinking or cooking, and careful handling of food.

SANITATION

• Dispose of dead bodies far from water sources.Always wash carefully after handling.

• Build emergency sanitation facilities at least 30 meters from any water source. Ensure that people can wash carefully after using the toilet.

• Always wash hands after using the toilet.

• Always wash hands before cooking.

WATER

• Do not drink untreated water.

• Treat water using at least 2 methods: Filtering through fabric, sand or other material and boiling Filtering through fabric, sand or other material and adding lime or lemon Filtering through fabric, sand or other material and adding chlorine

• Keep water containers clean and do not put hands in drinking water.

FOOD

• Cook food thoroughly and eat it while it is hot. Fish and shellfish are a major cause of cholera: only eat them if they are well-cooked. • Do not mix cooked foods with raw foods like salads or relishes. • Exclude infected persons from handling food. • Wash vegetables and fruit in treated water before use, or peel them if there is no water. • Discourage the habit of several people eating together from a communal food container.

* Preparing an Emergency Pit Latrine

In an emergency, while a more permanent latrine is being built, a simple pit can be dug as a temporary solution for the disposal of human excreta. It should have a depth of at least 1/2 meter, and be at least 20 meters from a well or other source of drinking water. Where possible, the pit should be at least 6 meters from the nearest house. It should not be located uphill from the water source or dug in marshy soil. The bottom of the pit should never penetrate the groundwater table. After each use, a layer of soil should be laid down in the pit. In an area affected by cholera, the pit should also be coated each day with a layer of unslaked lime. For more information about other latrine designs, please see Sanitation and Cleanliness for a Healthy Environment.

How to identify cholera?

Cholera is a severe form of diarrhea caused by bacteria in water.

The symptoms of cholera are:

• Diarrhea “like rice water” in very large quantities

• Vomiting

• Leg cramps

• Weakness

Diarrhea and vomiting can lead very quickly to severe dehydration and shock. Without treatment, death can occur within hours.

How Is a Heart Attack Treated?

Early treatment can prevent or limit damage to the heart muscle. Acting fast, at the first symptoms of heart attack, can save your life. Medical personnel can begin diagnosis and treatment even before you get to the hospital.

Certain treatments are usually started right away if a heart attack is suspected, even before the diagnosis is confirmed. These include:
     Oxygen
     Aspirin, to prevent further blood clotting 
     Nitroglycerin, to reduce the workload on the heart and improve blood flow through the                  coronary arteries
     Treatment for chest pain 

Once the diagnosis of heart attack is confirmed or strongly suspected, treatments to try to restore blood flow to the heart are started as soon as possible. Treatments include medicines and medical procedures.

1.Medicines 

   A number of different kinds of medicines may be used to treat heart attack. They include the       following. 

    Thrombolytic Medicines 

    These medicines (also called clot busters) are used to dissolve blood clots that are blocking the      coronary arteries. To be most effective, these medicines must be given within 1 hour after the      start of heart attack symptoms. 

     Beta Blockers

     These medicines decrease the workload on your heart. Beta blockers also are used to relieve         chest pain or discomfort and to help prevent additional heart attacks. Beta blockers also are         used to correct arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats). 

      Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE) Inhibitors 

     These medicines lower blood pressure and reduce the strain on your heart. They also help             slow down further weakening of the heart muscle. 

       Anticoagulants 

       These medicines thin the blood and prevent clots from forming in your arteries. 

       Antiplatelet Medicines 

       These medicines (such as aspirin and clopidogrel) stop platelets (a type of blood cell) from              clumping together and forming unwanted clots. 

       Other Medicines

       Medicines may also be given to relieve pain and anxiety, and to treat arrhythmias, which              often occur during a heart attack.

Causes of Hypertension Heart Attacks

Heart disease has been more frequently found in certain persons who show peculiar personality physical and mental traits. It will therefore, be worthwhile to discuss these factors. Coronary heart disease is considered to have multiple causative factors i.e., no one single factor perhaps could be identified as one causing a heart attack.

Heredity: There is ample evidence to show that incidence of heart disease is more in persons whose direct predecessors like fathers, grandfathers, mothers, brothers have suffered from similar disease. Coronary artery disease is found to run mainly in families. A strong family history of the disease is important in diagnosis.

Stress: Heart disease has often been identified with certain personality patterns. It is labelled as personality disease or a high executive disease, that is, it strikes persons with a certain personality. A certain study has shown that there was four times as much coronary disease among aggressive type of individuals. 
In addition to this other factors such as family responsibilities, interpersonal relationship, financial worries, leisure interests, habits of eating drinking and smoking etc. may play a part that may effect one's heart.

Smoking: It has been found by some workers that death rate among those who had heart attack was 50-150 percent higher in those who were heavy cigarette smoker than non-smokers.

Physical Exercise: There is a fairly general trend towards encouraging regular physical effort of a kind suited to age and condition of the person concerned. As a preventive as well as a remedial measure exercise is of great importance. There is abundant evidence to suggest that a stressful sedentary life without much exercise provides a situation fraught with coronary danger. Death rate from coronary heart disease is lower among those who do strenuous physical work.
Even for patients, who have survived coronary attacks, there has lately been a change in the thinking in marked contrast in earlier ideas. The doctors are now a day advocating, after the initial prescribed rest, walking up the stairs, going on hikes, bicycles and other forms of exercise. The quantum of exercise in each case must of course be decided by the attending physician. 

Diet and obesity: Certain studies have shown 50 percent increase in heart attacks in employees who were over weight similarly diet and amount of fat are matter of vital importance in incidence of heart disease. The sound advice which could be given is to lead a life of moderation in matter of diet and activity an also to avoid obesity. Large fatty meals and strenuous exercise after them is not conducive to a healthy heart.

Saturated fats: are likely of animal origin like whole milk, cream, butter, cheese meat, fat, etc. They raise blood cholesterol level. And they are not included in proper heart attack diet. On the other hand unsaturated fats are of vegetable origin and they tend to lower blood cholesterol levels like maize oil, cottonseed oil sunflower oil and fat of fish.

Heart Attack Signs

It has been said earlier that any disturbance in the supply of blood to heart muscle leads to its functional impairment. There are also other heart attack symptoms which need to be observed on time to take required measures for heart attack prevention.

It will be useful to discuss symptoms of heart attacks, which may lead to disturbances in the supply of blood to heart muscles. Certain conditions increase the strains on the heart. Among these are lack of rest, over exertion or prolonged hard labor which create an excessive body demand for oxygen that the heart, muscle must supply through pumping more blood. If the blood vessels are inelastic on account of arteriosclerosis fibrous thickening or narrowing of passage (atherosclerosis) additional work on the part of the heart will be needed to push blood through these vessels. Other indirect factors that may result in causing disturbance in blood supply are indigestion of food, anger and other emotional excitements.

There are some early heart attack symptoms, which may be important to watch for. Their appearance calls for a visit to the doctor for a check up. The heart attack symptoms are:

1.Dizzy spell or fainting fits 

2.Discomfort following meals, especially if long continued.

 3.Shortness of breath, after slight exertion. 

4.Fatigue with out otherwise explained origin. 

5.Pain or tightness in the chest a common sign of coronary insufficiency is usually constrictive in nature and is located behind the chest bone with radiation into the arms or a sense of numbness or a severe pain in the center of the chest 

6.Palpitation

 These symptoms of heart attack should be observed minuetly and should be taken care of as and when required.