PMID: 15382734Sep 24, 2004Paper

Estimating the global burden of thalassogenic diseases: human infectious diseases caused by wastewater pollution of the marine environment

Journal of Water and Health
Hillel Shuval

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary attempt at obtaining an order-of-magnitude estimate of the global burden of disease (GBD) of human infectious diseases associated with swimming/bathing in coastal waters polluted by wastewater, and eating raw or lightly steamed filter-feeding shellfish harvested from such waters. Such diseases will be termed thalassogenic--caused by the sea. Until recently these human health effects have been viewed primarily as local phenomena, not generally included in the world agenda of marine scientists dealing with global marine pollution problems. The massive global scale of the problem can be visualized when one considers that the wastewater and human body wastes of a significant portion of the world's population who reside along the coastline or in the vicinity of the sea are discharged daily, directly or indirectly, into the marine coastal waters, much of it with little or no treatment. Every cubic metre of raw domestic wastewater discharged into the sea can carry millions of infectious doses of pathogenic microorganisms. It is estimated that globally, foreign and local tourists together spend some 2 billion man-days annually at coastal recreational resorts and many are often exposed there to coastal ...Continue Reading

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