public health disasters

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If Things Weren’t Already Bad Enough, Houston Is About to Face a Public Health Nightmare

Jessica Firger | Mother Jones | August 30, 2017

In the coming weeks and even months, residents of Houston and other parts of southern Texas hit hard by Hurricane Harvey will be faced with the public health disasters that can result from dirty floodwater and landslides. The natural disaster has ostensibly turned the city into a sprawling, pathogen-infested swamp...

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Infectious Diseases Could Sweep Across Texas as Harvey Floods Houston

Jessica Firger | Newsweek | August 28, 2017

In the coming weeks and even months, residents of Houston and other parts of southern Texas hit hard by Hurricane Harvey will be faced with the public health disasters that can result from dirty floodwater and landslides. The natural disaster has ostensibly turned the city into a sprawling, pathogen-infested swamp. Up to 25 inches of rain have already accumulated in two days. Rains are expected to continue until Wednesday night, and by the end, Harvey will have dumped 40 to 50 inches on the metropolitan area. Heavy precipitation is turning entire neighborhoods into contaminated and potentially toxic rivers. For many of the city’s residents, contact with floodwater is unavoidable, putting them at risk for diarrhea-causing bacterial infections, Legionnaires’ disease and mosquito-borne viruses...

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What Harvey Is Teaching the Health Care Sector About Managing Disasters

Neil A. Gandhi and Ranu S. Dhillon | Harvard Business Review | September 12, 2017

The damage inflicted by Hurricane Harvey has posed enormous health challenges in Houston and neighboring areas hit hard by the storm. As regional medical director of emergency medicine for the Houston Methodist Hospital System, one of us (Neil) has been on the front lines of the medical response. The other (Ranu) has been involved in responses to such public health disasters as the Ebola crisis in Africa, Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The response to Harvey is ongoing, but there are early lessons that could help governments and health systems in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irma and other major catastrophes down the road...

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