Infectious diseases of severe weather-related and flood-related natural disasters.
OBJECTIVE
The present review will focus on some of the possible infectious disease consequences of disastrous natural phenomena and severe weather, with a particular emphasis on infections associated with floods and the destruction of infrastructure.


RESULTS
The risk of infectious diseases after weather or flood-related natural disasters is often specific to the event itself and is dependent on a number of factors, including the endemicity of specific pathogens in the affected region before the disaster, the type of disaster itself, the impact of the disaster on water and sanitation systems, the availability of shelter, the congregating of displaced persons, the functionality of the surviving public health infrastructure, the availability of healthcare services, and the rapidity, extent, and sustainability of the response after the disaster. Weather events and floods may also impact disease vectors and animal hosts in a complex system.


CONCLUSIONS
Weather or flood-related natural disasters may be associated with an increased risk of soft tissue, respiratory, diarrheal, and vector-borne infectious diseases among survivors and responders.
Ivers
Louise C
LC
Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Ryan
Edward T
ET
D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology*; D004190:Disasters; D006801:Humans; D012307:Risk Factors; D014887:Weather