‘It became part of life': how Haiti curbed cholera

Bhutan has committed to eliminating malaria from the country, as in on track to do so thanks in part to the Bhutanese government's consistent persistence to raise public awareness. Arming citizens with mosquito nets, spray and education, the small country has now outpaced India towards this public health goal.

A wastewater infrastructure crisis in the southern United States is much like those found in far less-developed countries. Now researchers and nonprofits are looking to successes in Africa, in an effort to eradicate obscure diseases and improve quality of life.

Local agencies tasked with controlling disease-spreading organisms are releasing sterile male mosquitoes to help reduce the pest’s population and prevent the spread of dengue. This strategy has decreased the mosquito population by about 82% in parts of Southern California, marking the first time in eight years that the population has declined instead of increased.

In the 1940s, typhus spread throughout the community living within the Warsaw ghetto, but cases dramatically decreased in the winter of 1941. While some researchers remain unsure why, others point towards a change in behavior that included increasing hygiene and nutrition practices and introducing social distancing.

Diseases such as dengue can quickly escalate into pandemics, but one organization is using leveraging the power of technology to prematurely predict when and where these outbreaks will take place. Using an artificial intelligence algorithm that relies on previous statistics, researchers are seeing an approximate 85% success rate at outbreak detection.

In order to improve community health and maintain defenses against communicable diseases in Nigeria, thousands of sanitation workers have been recruited, trained, and deployed. Additionally, neighboring countries have increased inspections of homes, vendors, and markets as well as created communal cleaning days.

The cholera outbreak in Haiti affected and killed thousands of people. Treating patients as quickly as possible became a top priority. Mass Design Group designed Gheskio's Cholera Treatment Center as a building that promotes recovery with water sanitation, ultimately reducing the number of cases of Cholera.

"Poor man Instagram" is how vets at Chiang Mai University describe their system of pandemic preparedness and emergency prevention. Recruiting community members throughout the region to be disease detectives, the scientists train these volunteers to use a mobile app that allows them to document dead animals that may have been sick with an illness that could pose a threat to humans. When scientists are alerted of cases, they are then able to investigate and intervene if the situation merits danger.

A public health campaign effectively reduced the incidence of malaria by sensitizing the community to the health risks of dumping waste indiscriminately, providing medical outreach and treatment for malaria, and cleaned up existing waste, which was moved to designated dumpsites.

Although residents in Bangladesh were initially hesitant to take precautionary measures against COVID-19, once one county began reporting cases, the community took swift action. From implementing hand washing stations at the borders of the regions to teaching children and other community members how to make soap and face masks, Bangladesh has not only been able to flatten the curve of coronavirus cases, but has also been able to avoid the typical influx of cholera cases that occur during the rainy season.