The flood situation in Guilin and Meizhou is worrying. After the heavy rain, you must pay attention to these!

Recently, many places in Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi have suffered from continuous heavy rainfall, resulting in floods, mountain torrents, landslides and other disasters. At 00:55 on June 20, the peak water level of the Lijiang River in Guilin reached 148.88 meters (warning water level 146 meters), 2.88 meters above the warning level, with a corresponding flow of 6,380 cubic meters per second, a flood that occurs once every 30 years.

The Central Meteorological Observatory issued a blue rainstorm warning at 10:00 on June 20. It is expected that from 14:00 on June 20 to 14:00 on June 21, parts of Chongqing, northern Guizhou, southwestern and northeastern Hubei, northwestern Hunan, southern Henan, central and southern Anhui, and southeastern Heilongjiang will have heavy to torrential rain, among which southern Chongqing and northeastern Guizhou will have local torrential rain (100-130 mm). Some of the above-mentioned areas will be accompanied by short-term heavy rainfall (maximum hourly rainfall of 20-50 mm, and more than 60 mm in some places), and strong convective weather such as thunderstorms and gales in some places.

Image source: Central Meteorological Observatory

While paying attention to the intensity of rainstorms, have you noticed another problem? Rainstorms have an impact on people's production and life. In the face of rainy weather, we should pay attention to urban construction issues and actively prevent urban waterlogging. In addition, we should also pay attention to the deeper hidden dangers behind it - that is, personal disease prevention and control. After the rainstorm, there is a high incidence of diseases.

Part 1

After rain, cities are natural breeding grounds for pathogenic bacteria

Why do various diseases occur after heavy rain?

After a heavy rain, a large amount of garbage caused by sewage backflow is left on the streets. If it is not cleaned up in time, these garbage will become a natural culture medium for pathogenic genes, providing a good breeding environment for various pathogenic bacteria.

In this way, the body's self-defense ability will be reduced after a heavy rain. If the external environment changes due to poor drainage, the human body is very likely to develop various diseases. So, what diseases will be caused? Below we will analyze the types and hazards of diseases and subdivide the methods of controlling diseases.

Part 2

There are too many diseases to prevent

1. Epidemics caused by diet

After heavy rains, a large amount of garbage and waste is washed into the water, causing a sharp increase in biological pollution; at the same time, industrial waste that is not handled in time may cause serious chemical pollution. The above factors have caused serious damage to the sanitary environment of the flooded cities, and bacteria have rapidly multiplied, which may directly contaminate drinking water and even cause the spread of intestinal infectious diseases.

For example, large-scale group diarrhea. School-age children are particularly susceptible to infection due to their low resistance and poor ability to distinguish contaminated drinking water or food. Once infected, they need a long treatment period. An epidemiological survey in Nanning, Guangxi showed that the incidence of diarrhea among residents after heavy rains reached 11.18%, with symptoms ranging from mild diarrhea to high fever and impaired consciousness. Most of the pathogens were Escherichia coli.

(Once, I surfed the Internet on an eMule in a rainstorm)

If heavy rains cause urban waterlogging, the environment will be severely damaged, garbage and feces cannot be handled in time, the medical care system will be blocked, and medicines and equipment will be in short supply. If epidemic monitoring and effective prevention and control cannot be carried out in time, natural epidemic sources of infectious diseases will be exposed and spread. Especially in the southern region, schistosomiasis often breaks out with floods. This is because floods cause the spread of snails over a large area, and when floods occur, people often walk barefoot in the water, which increases the chances of contact with epidemic water and makes them more susceptible to schistosomiasis.

Moreover, after flooding, the stagnant water in the streets often gather schistosomiasis and other parasites. Therefore, people should avoid wading in the water. If walking in the stagnant water cannot be avoided, they need to wear waterproof boots, return to the room, wash them as soon as possible and change into dry shoes and socks.

2. Spread of rodent-borne or insect-borne diseases

After heavy rainfall in summer, the amount of water where mosquitoes lay their eggs increases, resulting in the expansion of mosquito breeding grounds after the disaster, providing good conditions for mosquito breeding. At the same time, if mosquitoes are not actively prevented, the chances of being bitten by mosquitoes will increase, and the risk of mosquito-borne infectious diseases will also increase. The accumulation of water increases the chances of people coming into contact with natural epidemic foci and vector insects, increasing the probability of infection. For example, if feces, garbage and rotten organic matter (including livestock carcasses) are not properly handled, mosquitoes and flies will breed, and the incidence of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever transmitted by mosquito bites will increase. Finally, floods have changed the living environment of rodents, causing the density of rodents in highlands to increase, and the chances of people coming into contact with natural epidemic foci have increased, which can easily lead to the spread of rodent-borne diseases.

3. High incidence of skin diseases after disasters

Summer rainstorms, high temperature and high humidity, human skin is soaked in sweat for a long time, vitamins are consumed in large quantities but not replenished enough, and various harmful organisms damage the skin, which can easily cause skin diseases. Common skin diseases include ringworm, immersion dermatitis, insect bite dermatitis, prickly heat, scrotitis, etc. Ringworm and insect bite dermatitis have a greater impact on the masses.

Therefore, during days of continuous heavy rainfall, you should eat more fresh fruits and vegetables to supplement vitamins and improve immunity; and use mosquito and insect repellents externally to prevent skin damage and infection.

Image source: pixabay

Part 3

Controlling the spread of diseases from the details

Since so many diseases may occur after heavy rain, especially when it causes waterlogging, how should we prevent them?

1. Deal with pollutants promptly

Once urban flooding occurs after a rainstorm, we should first strengthen the publicity of post-disaster disease prevention and control, focus on monitoring people with fever and diarrhea, pay attention to the occurrence and epidemic trends of various infectious diseases, and report infectious diseases and suspected infectious diseases in a timely manner. If infectious disease patients are found, they should be isolated and treated in time to prevent the spread, and the patients' excrement should be buried in a centralized manner to avoid contaminating water sources; at the same time, the patients' daily necessities should be disinfected in a centralized manner, and insects and mosquitoes should be actively killed to prevent the spread of insect-borne infectious diseases.

2. Prevent diseases from entering the body through eating and drinking, and pay attention to food and water safety and hygiene

After the rain, be careful not to drink raw water, do not eat food that has been stored for too long or has gone bad, meat of poultry and livestock that have drowned or died of unknown causes, food or side dishes soaked in flood water, do not use flood water to wash dishes or fruits and vegetables, and do not use flood water to rinse your mouth.

In addition to paying attention to food hygiene, it is best to eat a small amount of vinegar and garlic at each meal to enhance the defense ability of the gastrointestinal tract. In addition, attention should be paid to protecting water sources to prevent drinking water from being polluted. If the drinking water is turbid, it must be effectively disinfected and purified before drinking.

3. Keep mosquitoes away from your home

To prevent mosquito bites, try to wear long clothes and long pants, and tie the collar, cuffs and trouser legs tightly. After being bitten by mosquitoes, you should immediately treat the lesions with anti-inflammatory and anti-itching, eat more vegetables and fruits to enhance the body's immunity, avoid scratching the affected area, and seek specialist treatment if necessary.

Image source: veer gallery

Part 4

With heavy rains in recent days, who should be more careful?

Although, with the strengthening of urban construction, waterlogging has become less and less common, there are still some health-related matters that need attention during heavy rain, even if it does not cause waterlogging, especially for certain special groups of people.

1. Avoid getting wet in the rain

After being caught in the rain, patients with low immune function are prone to lobar pneumonia, with symptoms such as high fever, cough, and sputum. Since lobar pneumonia has a greater impact on lung tissue and respiratory function and is prone to leave sequelae, people need to be careful to avoid being caught in the rain, especially healthy people after a lot of exercise, people who have suffered respiratory infections and have not yet recovered, and people with low immune function such as diabetes, emphysema, and anemia.

2. Reduce travel on rainy days

For people with chronic cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases whose conditions are poorly controlled, they should reduce going out, avoid catching cold, and increase indoor activities appropriately during heavy rains to prevent the occurrence of acute ischemic events.

When walking in the rain, people often walk faster and their heart rate accelerates, so the body's metabolic rate often increases, and the heart and brain consume more oxygen than usual. For people with coronary heart disease, fast walking in the rain can easily induce myocardial ischemia and acute myocardial infarction; for people with cerebral vascular stenosis (especially vertebral arteries, basilar arteries and other posterior circulation blood supply arteries), walking in the rain can induce cerebral vasospasm, causing insufficient blood supply to the brain, and in severe cases, can lead to acute attacks of ischemic stroke.

What should we do when it rains? Heavy rainfall requires not only flood prevention, but also disease prevention. Let us actively do a good job in our own disease prevention and control, and wait for the rain to stop and the sky to clear up.

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Author: Xuanhu Science Team

Producer: China Science Expo

This article only represents the author's views and does not represent the position of China Science Expo

This article was first published in China Science Expo (kepubolan)