Prevention and Treatment of Tropical Diseases
Some of the strategies for controlling tropical diseases include:
- Draining wetlands to reduce populations of insects and other vectors.
- The application of insecticides and/or insect repellents) to strategic surfaces such as: clothing, skin, buildings, insect habitats, and bed nets.
- The use of a mosquito net over a bed (also known as a "bed net") to reduce nighttime transmission, since certain species of tropical mosquitoes feed mainly at night.
- Use of water wells, and/or water filtration, water filters, or water treatment with water tablets to produce drinking water free of parasites.
- Sanitation to prevent transmission through human waste
- Development and use of vaccines to promote disease immunity.
- Pharmacologic pre-exposure prophylaxis (to prevent disease before exposure to the environment and/or vector).
- Pharmacologic post-exposure prophylaxis (to prevent disease after exposure to the environment and/or vector).
- Pharmacologic treatment (to treat disease after infection or infestation).
- Assisting with economic development in endemic regions. For example by providing microloans to enable investments in more efficient and productive agriculture. This in turn can help subsistence farming to become more profitable, and these profits can be used by local populations for disease prevention and treatment, with the added benefit of reducing the poverty rate.
Read more about this topic: Tropical Disease
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