April 7 is World Health Day and this year’s theme is food safety.
April 7 is World Health Day and this year’s theme is food safety.
Children are often more prone to diseases than adults, partly due to the fact that their immune systems are not as well developed, but another reason could also be unclean surroundings. While you might think that feeding them healthy foods, cooked hygienically at home is the answer to keep them safe, think again. Your home may not be as clean as you think.
Filled with fresh food, water, warmth and a free supply of garbage, your home could be a breeding ground for cockroaches — a pest that can cause a variety of illnesses such as diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid fever and cholera.
Shocked? Well, here are 10 ailments cockroaches can cause.
Why and how do cockroaches cause diseases?
Filthy and fouls smelling pests, cockroaches do not cause diseases directly but are carriers of the diseases. Thought of as disgusting, cockroaches can live and eat anywhere anything. That being said, they have a special liking for human and animal faeces, rotting food etc. Not only do they eat these disgusting things but they also carry around various dangerous, disease causing bacteria and spread them in your home, food and water leading to illness in your child.
Apart from that, cockroaches are also known to carry deadly organisms in their gut, that are released into your food and home when they regurgitate as they try to eat.These organisms contaminate the food or water, making it easy for them to enter the human body — causing diseases.
What diseases can cockroaches cause?
Diarrhoea: As per the WHO, cockroaches are known carriers for organisms that cause diarrhoea. Bacteria like E.coli, Salmonella, Shigella and Aeromonas species thrive on the legs and body of cockroaches and spread to the areas they crawl over. What’s more they are known to harbour pseudomonas bacteria in their gut. All these factors put together make cockroaches a very potent source of diarrhoea-causing bacteria. You may also like to read about 9 home remedies for diarrhoea in children
Gastroenteritis: A very severe infection of the stomach, this condition can cause diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach cramps coupled with fever. Known to be caused by consuming food or water contaminated with bacteria such asAlcaligenesfaecalis,Proteus mirabilis,Pseudomonas or Salmonella, cockroaches are the leading cause for the spread of this disease. Acting as carriers, cockroaches spread these organisms by leaving behind their faeces, skin flakes and egg shells in your kitchen and uncovered foods — leading to the contamination of the food you eat. You may also like to read How to prevent gastroenteritis or stomach flu?
Food poisoning: Another kind of digestive disorder, this infection is again caused by bacteria like Serratia, Clostridium perfringens and Salmonella that cockroaches carry in and on their body.
Typhoid: Caused specifically due to the bacterium Salmonella typhi, cockroaches are a known carrier of this bacteria. Deemed by the WHO as one of the main causes for the spread of this disease, typhoid is spread by the cockroaches eating and walking on human faeces that is contaminated with this bacterium. It then transfers this bacteria onto your food, raw materials and cooking surface making it extremely easy for the disease to spread.
Infections by drug resistant bacteria: A study published in the journal Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control[1,4] found that the gut and body of cockroaches were the home to some very dangerous organisms like Klebsiellaoxytoca, Klebsiellapneumoniae, Citrobacter species, Enterobacter cloacae, Streptococcus and Staphylococcusbacterium that were extremely drug resistant (to over 12 commonly use antibacterial agents). But what really made this finding shocking is that children were most susceptible to being infected by these organisms making — it even more dangerous.
Intestinal worms: Known to carry the larvae and eggs of parasitic worms, cockroaches are capable of being the source of intestinal worms in your child. Home to common intestinal parasites, these pests can cause your family, especially your child to harbourintestinal parasitessuch as hookworm, round worm, pin worm and tape worms — leading diseases like digestive disorders, stunted growth and anaemia, to name a few. Here are 4 natural remedies for intestinal worms.
UTI : The carrier of organisms like Klebshiells, Enterococcus and Alcaliegens species, cockroaches can cause urinary tract infections too.
Wound infections: Suffering from small nicks and cuts around the home is very common, but did you know that cockroaches actually carry organisms that can infect these wounds causing them to become septic, gangrenous and even lead to a fatal condition called septicaemia? Yes, a study found that apart from drug resistant bacteria these pests also carry an organism called Clostridium perfringes that is a known cause for gas gangrene. Apart from that the other bacterium like E.coli and Salmonella that are commonly found on the body of cockroachescan cause septicaemia too.
Dysentery: This is a condition that is caused due to a bacterial or viral infection in the colon. A person suffering from this condition has severe loose motions with characteristic watery stools. Caused due to an organism called Shigelladysenteriae, cockroaches are carriers of this organism[4] and therefore spread the disease.
Allergic reactions:Youwouldn’t think it’s possible but cockroaches can cause allergies too. According to the WHO cockroach saliva, secretion, skin and body parts contain hundreds of allergens that can trigger allergic reactions including dermatitis, itching, swelling of the eyelids and other serious respiratory ailments.
Asthma: A pest that can be quite dangerous for asthmatics and people with respiratory ailments, cockroaches are known to trigger a asthmatic attacks, pneumonia [2] and worsen or lead to other severe respiratory ailments.They are especially dangerous for children as they are known to cause recurrent asthmatic attacks with atopy (where the child develops severe hypersensitivity or allergic reaction). Here are 8 ways to manage asthma in children effectively.
The right way to kill cockroaches and keep them away
Every year World Health Organization selects a priority area of global public health concerns. This year the theme is food safety wherein WHO is alerting people on the importance of safe food and how to prevent food from getting contaminated. WHO in its safe food manual has identified cockroaches are one of pest that carries disease causing harmful microorganisms and can infest food leading to diseases like diarrhea, dysentery, gastroenteritis and many more.
According to WHO to keep the food free from pests one needs to take following actions:
- Keep food covered or in close containers.
- Keep rubbish bins covered and remove rubbish regularly.
- Keep food preparation areas in good conditions (avoid cracks and holes).
- Use insecticide to kill pests.
- Keep pets away from the area of food preparations.
Pests like cockroaches are nocturnal and hard to find, hence its essential to use aerosols like HIT, that come with special seek and kill applicator. Seek and Kill applicators elongate the nozzles of the aerosols and let you apply the insecticide in places like sinkholes, cracks and cervices where the roaches hide and are hard to reach.
There are also gel based products like Anti-Roach Gel available in the market, that are extremely affective on these dirty cockroaches, they actually attract the cockroach towards, these products destroys the entire nest as the cockroach which eats the gel goes back to its nest and contaminates them as well.
We wish you a very happy world health day, while you take all other precautions to keep your child’s health safe, do not ignore even a single cockroach in your kitchen.
References:
[1] Tilahun et al. (2012) High load of multi-drug resistant nosocomial neonatal pathogens carried by cockroaches in a neonatal intensive care unit at TikurAnbessa specialized hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control. 1: 12
[2]WHO.int, Cockroaches Unhygienic scavengers in human settlements, pg 288-301
[3]Burgess NR &Chetwyn KN. (1981) Association of cockroaches with an outbreak of dysentery. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 75(2): 332-3
[4]Hsiu-Hua P et al. (2005) Isolation of bacteria with antibiotic resistance from household cockroaches (Periplanetaamericana and Blattellagermanica) ActaTropica 93: 259–265 T
[5]Chaichanawongsaroj et al. (2004) Isolation of gram-negative bacteria from cockroaches trapped from urban environment. Southeast Asian J Trop Med Public Health. 35(3): 681-4
This article is brought to you in association with GODREJ HIT
Originally published on www.thehealthsite.com
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