How to avoid monsoon diseases and infections?

Common monsoon illnesses can be deadly, if not treated on time. Here’s how you can protect yourself against monsoon-related diseases and infections

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Due to the high moisture content in the air, harmful microorganisms can easily thrive and transmit a host of infections and diseases during rainy season. Your risk of exposure to these water borne diseases is twice as high during the monsoon season than in any other season. Therefore, between July to September, it’s best to take a few basic preventive and hygiene measures to avoid falling sick.

Contaminated Food

There are four main causes of monsoon-related diseases; consuming contaminated food or water is one of them. To prevent this, always eat freshly washed, boiled vegetables, and avoid dairy products, as they can harbour harmful microorganisms.

For a stronger immune system, reduce your intake of fatty, oily, and salty foods. You should also opt for light meals and wash your vegetables and fruits with vinegar to remove bacteria.

Besides contaminated food, the other three ways in which rainy season diseases are transmitted include mosquitoes, water, and air.

Air-borne diseases

During the rainy season, disease-causing viruses called pathogens, travel through the air, leading to illnesses like influenza (the seasonal flu), viral fever, colds, coughs, and sore throats.

While these pathogens may only cause mild infections in healthy adults, they can pose serious risks to senior citizens, children, and individuals with weakened or developing immune systems.

Safety Measures

Since air-borne diseases are easily spread from person to person, it’s best to take the following precautions:

• Cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.
• Drink only boiled water during the monsoon season.
• Keep your home well-ventilated.
• Keep children, the elderly, and those with weak or developing immune systems away from infected individuals.

Water-borne diseases

More than 3.4 million Indians are affected by water-borne diseases, reports WHO, with children being the most vulnerable due to their developing immune systems. Water-borne diseases are typically caused by exposure to dirty water, muck, or mud during the monsoons, poor personal hygiene, inadequate sanitation, or consuming stale, uncovered, or contaminated food.

Common water-borne diseases include typhoid, cholera, leptospirosis (Weil’s syndrome), jaundice, hepatitis A, and gastrointestinal infections like vomiting, diarrhoea, and gastroenteritis.

People infected with water-borne diseases may experience symptoms such as fever, headaches, fatigue, muscle or joint pain, yellowing of the eyes, or loss of appetite.

Safety Measures

The preventive measures for water-borne diseases are quite similar to those for air-borne monsoon infections:

• Avoid eating outside food
• Maintain personal hygiene
• Always boil or wash fruits and vegetables with vinegar before eating them
• Ensure there are no open drains or potholes in your area
• Get your children vaccinated if they haven’t been already

Lastly, you need to watch out for mosquito-borne infections to stay safe this monsoon season.

Mosquito-borne diseases

India accounts for 34% of global dengue and 11% of global malaria cases. Since monsoons are the breeding season for mosquito-borne diseases, it’s crucial to know the symptoms and take precautionary measures to prevent them.

• Malaria — high fever (up to 105-degree C) for several days
• Dengue — first signs include fever and fatigue, with dengue fever lasting four to seven days after being bitten
• Chikungunya — pain in the joints and bones, stiffness

Safety Measures

Malaria-causing mosquitoes typically breed in water that is slightly moving or stagnant but not completely still; they can be found in water channels, streams, and ponds. Whereas, dengue and chikungunya-causing mosquitoes prefer still water; they breed in stagnant water in buckets, drums, flower pots, wells, and even tree holes.

To protect yourself against mosquito-borne diseases, you can take the following precautions:

• Remove of all sources of stagnant water; regularly clean and disinfect places where water can accumulate
• If you can’t get rid of the water source, try using larvicides that kill mosquito larvae in stagnant water
• Use mosquito nets and apply mosquito repellents, if you’re living in areas where mosquito-borne diseases are common

The increased moisture in the air during the rainy season, creating an ideal environment for fungal and bacterial activity, can cause various skin and hair problems, such as pimples, rashes, allergies, hair fall, and dandruff. To keep these issues at bay, maintain good hygiene practices, stay hydrated, and eat a balanced diet.