The mud that previously choked the streets days ago begins to settle as a solid mass that threatens to collapse the sanitation network of the devastated towns. Last week the water pressure in the area was increased to prevent the mud from solidifying, but it has not been enough. Now it is the main urgency while we look to the sky again due to the risk of new rains and warn of the danger of an epidemic. «We know that the sooner sanitation is done and the sewage is cleaned, the less risk of disease there will be. “Sanitation must be improved and done quickly and well.” This is how forceful Juan Francisco Navarro, president of the Valencian Society of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, is when speaking about the tasks that must be carried out at this time in the areas affected by DANA to avoid risks to public health . A “natural disaster of this magnitude,” he continues, affects all aspects of health and also “exponentially” increases the risk of “some infections that we had controlled and that normally with sanitation and hygiene are not going to occur,” but now the situation is different. So far, the Generalitat has reported two probable cases of leptospirosis – still lacking confirmation – in two volunteers who have participated in the cleaning work these days. Leptospira is a bacteria that can be contracted through contact with flood water, wet soil, or sludge contaminated with the urine or tissues of infected animals, such as rodents. «It is one of the infections that we could most expect to arise because normally, under normal conditions, humans do not have contact with wastewater with rodent urine, which is where the germ is. But in these cases it can lead to the exposure of thousands of people eager to help who have come as volunteers and who at first did not have adequate protection,” explains Navarro. Related News Standard No Public Health reports two probable cases of leptospira among the Valencia ABCA volunteers, the lack of running water that prevents proper hygiene and the accumulation of mud, this doctor highlights, adds to the accumulation of garbage that at the moment has not been able to be removed and that attracts rodents, which also increases the risk of that these diseases occur. Rat disease Óscar Zurriaga, outgoing president of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, also points to leptospirosis. «It is a known disease in the area. In the Albufera it was called ‘rat disease’. Lately it is true that there have been very few cases, but it is not an unknown disease,” he says, and emphasizes that it is not caused by the bite of the rodent, but by coming into contact with water contaminated by its urine. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and the Department of Health of the Valencian Community consider the risk for wound infections to be low and moderate for others such as diseases transmitted by water and food, leptospirosis and legionellosis. They also consider the threat for respiratory viral infections and those transmitted by vectors to be low, although in the latter case they point out that, like those related to rodents, they can lead to a moderate risk in the medium term. To curb this risk, work is already underway to control and disinfect pests. Rubén Bueno, doctor in Biology and specialist in vector control, explains that the accumulation of stagnant water is favoring the proliferation of mosquito larvae, both the common genus and the tiger. The company Lokímica, of which he is technical director, is carrying out control actions (fumigation, deratization…) in some of the affected municipalities, and also in others that have not suffered damage, as the risk is expanding. Bueno believes that an approach that goes beyond municipal competence is necessary for the work to be effective. Currently this disinfection is being carried out on land due to accessibility difficulties in the area, but the possibility of using helicopters and drones for these tasks is already being studied, as has been done in areas of Seville to control the spread of the virus. Nile. Although the control of mosquito larvae is essential so that they do not reproduce and that with the arrival of heat the risk of transmission of diseases such as the Nile virus or dengue increases, in the short term the control of rodents « is “priority,” says Bueno. The state of the sewage system also means that these deratization campaigns cannot be carried out. «Right now they are showing high activity because they have moved from their natural niches, such as sewers or crop areas, and since they have a great capacity for adaptation and are good swimmers, we have them active in places with much closer proximity to humans and contaminating elements,” he says. With lime and lyeIt is difficult to know how much sludge has to be removed from the streets and sewers, but the estimated figure is two million cubic meters of sludge. The first thing is to remove the sludge from the sewers to prevent it from solidifying and collapsing the sewer network. There, the ‘chuponas’ are necessary, the specific unblocking trucks that the Generalitat has been demanding from the central government for days. Now 25 are working on the ground and at least another hundred are needed. The sludge that is extracted is treated differently from the rubble and destroyed belongings that already accumulate in improvised landfills before treatment. Like the rest of waste, the objective is to remove it from urban centers as soon as possible. The Generalitat’s plan is to deposit the sludge in five waterproofed fields to avoid underground contamination and far from the towns. In these areas, the sludge will be pre-treated with lime or bleach so that the organic matter remains inert and there is no risk of infection. Then, once dry, it will be sent to landfills. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, also acknowledged yesterday at a press conference after announcing his action plan that “the priority now is to extract the sludge and also the belongings and waste that “They are in the centers of those municipalities”, a task, he said, “colossal”, but that must be carried out “as soon as possible.” Among the pending works, he explained, is repairing the sanitation and purification network in the area, in addition to removing debris. There are dozens of treatment plants operating with failures, broken collectors and sewers clogged by sludge.
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