Typhoid Fever in Nigeria

Typhoid fever is a serious and sometimes life-threatening infection that mostly affects people in third world countries, where clean water and other sanitation measures are hard to come by. People usually get typhoid fever by drinking water that contain infected feces. People that carry the illness also can pass the disease onto others directly. For example, having physical contact with another person one may pass the disease onto that person. Bathing in the water that contains the S. Typhi bacteria may cause the bacteria to enter your body. Areas in which do not have sufficient bathrooms or waste water treatment are more likely to carry the infection. When feces contaminate the water bacteria can rapidly grow which poses a threat to people where Salmonella typhi are prevalent. Water treatment such as pur packet, lifestraw,biosand filter, and sun stove can help prevent people from being contaminated with the parasites. For these reasons, the disease is common in areas with poor sanitation and inadequate water treatment. One of the most impacted places in all of Africa is Nigeria.

Typhoid fever has consequential effect on both the body and mind that can kill someone if not treated. Symptoms and a diagnosis of typhoid fever is as follows. People that have typhoid fever usually have a fever in the range of 103° to 104° F. The patient may also feel weak, have headaches, and loss of appetite. A rarely found symptoms is a rash that resembles rose colored spots. Abdominal tenderness, agitation, hallucinations, chills, confusion, attention deficit, fluctuating mood,delirium, bloody stools, nose bleeds, severe fatigue, slow, and sluggish, lethargic feeling, and weakness can and will result if the disease is not cured. A diagnosis of typhoi...

... middle of paper ...

...00 health clinics in which most of the patients were hospitalized in. There is about 700 health care centers as well as 12 universities that provide health care. Another contributing factor is the doctor to patient ratio which is three doctors for every 10,000 people. Where as The United States has one doctor for every 390 people. Which is a change of 2,943 people per doctor. The reason why so much of Nigeria is subjected to typhoid fever is because of the low GDP per capita which is a staggering 1,555. Since most Nigerians live off of one dollar a day people are unable to afford water treatment.

Since a sun stove can be made out of simple materials like cardboard boxes and aluminium sheeting one can be made for about $15. Because the cardboard box is square, all four sides can be cut away from one another so all light reflects to the water in the center of the box.