WATER. One of the most essential compounds needed for all life.
Support and promote water conservation, and purification in your community, and support others throughout the world in the importance of water.
Remember only 1-percent of the water in the world is available for human consumption.
BEMA
http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/details_linked.asp?pid=8229
This photograph depicts a young Ghanaian woman holding a pipe filter that she wears draped on a cord about her neck. Pipe filters are individual filtration devices, similar to a straw, which allow people to filter their water to avoid contracting Guinea worm disease (GWD) while traveling or working in the field. Persons become infected by drinking water containing copepods (water fleas) harboring the infective stage larvae of Dracunculus medinensis. Once inside the body, the stomach acid digests the water flea, but not the larvae, which find their way to the small intestine, where they penetrate the wall of the intestine and pass into the body cavity.
During the next 10 - 14 months, the Guinea worms mature to a full size adult 60 - 100cm (2 - 3ft) long, and as wide as a cooked spaghetti noodle. Adult worms mate inside the abdomen. After which, the male dies and the female worm migrates to the site where she will emerge, usually from lower limbs.
Provide communities with safe sources of drinking water (such as from borehole or hand-dug wells), or have existing dysfunctional ones repaired. Because Guinea worm disease (GWD) can only be transmitted through drinking contaminated water, educating people to follow these simple control measures can completely prevent illness and eliminate transmission of the disease:
- Prevent persons with an open Guinea worm ulcer from entering ponds and wells used for drinking water.
- Always filter drinking water, using a household cloth filter or pipe filter, to remove the water fleas which harbor the infective Guinea worm larvae.
- Treat unsafe sources of drinking water with an approved larvicide, such as ABATE®, that kills water fleas.
- Provide communities with safe sources of drinking water (such as from borehole or hand-dug wells), or have existing dysfunctional ones repaired.
