Hygiene
is one of the most important things in our life. We need hygiene to save our
life and prevent unwanted events that may lead us to death. The definition
itself is a set of practices performed for the
preservation of health (Wikipedia). Sometimes, we tend to forget hygiene. In
some countries, they are struggling on maintaining hygiene which leads to
higher death rate in their countries. On the other hand, some other countries really
priorities hygiene, especially in More Economically Developed Countries.
Sometimes we like to underestimate the use of
hygiene, but unexpectedly hygiene has an important role in our life. Unwanted
diseases such as HIV/AIDS, dengue fever, malaria, diarrhoea, and many more might
come due to lack of hygiene. As I said before in some countries (mostly Less
Economically Developed Countries), hygiene is often forgotten. So for now, let’s
talk about the example of the disease that might spread if we underestimate
hygiene, HIV/AIDS. What is HIV?
HIV is a Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This
virus attacks the human’s body system. This virus can spread through
transfusion of contaminated blood, unprotected sex and also breast feeding.
There are 10 million people and 3 million children in Africa that are HIV
positive. Also, two-thirds of the world’s HIV people live in Africa.
To add on, you can get HIV from contact with
infected blood, semen, or vaginal fluids. Most people get the virus by having
unprotected sex with someone who has HIV. Another common way of getting it is
by sharing drug needles with someone who is infected with HIV as it is told
before.
As I said before, HIV/AIDS is one of the
diseases that we might get if we ignore hygiene. Then how to prevent it?
-
Prevent unprotected sex
-
Make sure that the needle that
is used is not contaminated/clean (if we are getting injections)
-
Eat healthy food (make sure it
is clean as well)
Another example of the disease is dengue
fever. This often happens to us, it started by getting bitten by a mosquito and
ended up in the hospital. This is also caused by lack of hygiene like for
example, earlier this month is raining season which means puddles are
everywhere. These puddles are fine, IF ONLY the place is not dirty or crowded
with trashes. The problem is that usually, these puddles are often dirty due to
overcrowded trashes that are not thrown in the right place. Like for example, on the riverbanks there are
so many trashes and when it rains, the water would get trapped in the gaps
between the trashes. That is the place where mosquitos lay eggs the most. If we
are not active on this, more and more people will get this disease which also
might increase the chance of death.
So what should we do? Go back to the topic,
hygiene. It’s all about hygiene. We can prevent it from happening by throwing
trashes in the right places, making sure that our house is always clean and not
full of things that are not used anymore which provides mosquito breeding and
so on. So, what are we waiting for, start loving hygiene and start acting!
References:
