LIRA UNIVERSITY

P.O. Box 1035, Lira, Uganda

Tel: +256 -0414-694716

Email: ahealth.faculty@lirauni.ac.ug
Web: www.lirauni.ac.ug

FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

YEAR 2 SEMESTER 1

Communicable diseases 1

Lecturer: Mr. Okello Innocent Lambert

Student’s Name: Atim Romeo

Reg. no: 18/U/0232/PHL/PS

Sign………………………………

QUESTION:

How do we use a combination of primary, secondary, tertiary intervention in solving health

problems in a displaced community living in camp.
Health problems; these are physical change to the body cause by violence, accident or fracture,
illness, diseases or other medical condition

A displaced community in the camp: This are people who have left their homes as a result of
natural, technological or deliberate events and political wars in many parts of the world has
increased the number of displaced people feeling emergencies and disaster.

In the camps there are three distinct levels of prevention as follows

Primary prevention—Primary prevention aims to prevent disease or injury before it ever

occurs. This is done by preventing exposures to hazards that cause disease or injury, altering
unhealthy or unsafe behaviours that can lead to disease or injury, and increasing resistance to
disease or injury should exposure occur. Examples include:

 legislation and enforcement to ban or control the use of hazardous products (e.g.
asbestos) or to mandate safe and healthy practices (e.g. use of seatbelts and bike helmets)
 education about healthy and safe habits (e.g. eating well, exercising regularly, not
smoking)
 immunization against infectious diseases.

Secondary prevention— those preventive measures that lead to early diagnosis and prompt
treatment of a disease, illness or injury to prevent more severe problems developing. Here health
educators such as Health Extension Practitioners can help individuals acquire the skills of
detecting diseases in their early stages.

Secondary prevention aims to reduce the impact of a disease or injury that has already occurred.
This is done by detecting and treating disease or injury as soon as possible to halt or slow its
progress, encouraging personal strategies to prevent reinjury or recurrence, and implementing
programs to return people to their original health and function to prevent long-term problems.
Examples include: regular exams and screening tests to detect disease in its earliest stages (e.g.
mammograms to detect breast cancer)

 daily, low-dose aspirins and/or diet and exercise programs to prevent further heart attacks
or strokes
 suitably modified work so injured or ill workers can return safely to their jobs.

Tertiary prevention—those preventive measures aimed at rehabilitation following significant

illness. At this level health services workers can work to retrain, re-educate and rehabilitate
people who have already developed an impairment or disability. Tertiary prevention aims to
soften the impact of an ongoing illness or injury that has lasting effects. This is done by helping
people manage long-term, often-complex health problems and injuries (e.g. chronic diseases,
permanent impairments) in order to improve as much as possible their ability to function, their
quality of life and their life expectancy. Examples include:

 cardiac or stroke rehabilitation programs, chronic disease management programs (e.g. for
diabetes, arthritis, depression, etc.)
 support groups that allow members to share strategies for living well
 vocational rehabilitation programs to retrain workers for new jobs when they have
recovered as much as possible.
The following are the ways in which primary, secondary and tertiary preventions can be
combined in managing health problems in the camp.

 Provision for immunization to people living in the camp against suspected infectious
disease outbreak e.g. measles, hepatitis B, TB, swine flu to prevent the spread of disease
and if not done can lead to serious outbreak.
 Provision of faecal adequate facilities for faecal disposal to the community to prevent risk
getting diseases associated with poor waste disposal.
 Good sanitation and hygiene provide good health while poor sanitation and hygiene can
lead to poor health of people living in the camp.
 Provision of adequate safe water supplies to community living in camp to prevent risk of
getting disease associated with low water storage and poor hygiene eg skin infection like
scabies.
 Giving counselling to people who are already affected with communicable disease and it
is done prevent further disease occurrence
 Provision of nutritious food ratio to the people living in that community in the camp in
order to improve on nutrition status while poor nutrition leads to malnutrion and death.
 Increasing physical fitness and emotional wellbeing that reduce incidence of disease or
render population at risk not vulnerable to that risk e.g. psychotherapy to prevent suicidal
tendencies associated with emotional stress.
 Limiting expose to reservoirs of infection through provision of mosquito net to reduce risk
of getting malaria, providing condoms to sexually active groups of people to reduce risk in
getting sexually transmitted disease
 Provision of health Education to community in the camp that empowering them with
knowledge and skill that help them prevent disease from occurring e.g. encouraging them
on hand washing, latrine utilization to reduce diarrhoea disease , HIV prevention, Eating
well, no smoking exercising regularly to prevent on diseases outbreak
 Provision of regular exams and Screening test to detect disease at earlier stage to everybody
entering the camp e.g. Ebola cases, TB, Swine flu, HIV, cancer etc. this is done to prevent
serious spread of disease outbreak
 Provision for isolation point for people who are infected with communicable diseases in
order to prevent disease outbreak no provision disease will cautious to occur
 Regular surveillance to measure burden of disease so as to come up with immediate
intervention preventing further progress and impact of disease.
 Early detection, diagnosis and treatment of disease to prevent progress to severity or
preventing disease from being chronic.
  Coming up with a projects with modified work schemes that is suitable for those who are
injured.
 Group counselling to encourage those injured emotionally physically so as to strengthen
them in al aspect s of living.
 Psychotherapy, psycho education and counselling to prevent effects associated with post-
traumatic stress disorder and other psychological and mental problems.
 Provision of treatment to people who are infected with diseases in the camp in order to
improve on health and if not done these can lead to morbidity and mortality.
 Provision of palliative care to people who are terminal ill just to improve on their ill health.
 Setting up support groups that bring the disable/injured together so as to share experiences
and come up with strategies that help improve their living condition.
 Provision vocational rehabilitation to retrain community member to do new jobs that will
help enhance their living conditions and improve their standards of living.
 Implementing rehabilitation and management programs to fight for chronic diseases like
depression.
 Health Education can be applied at all three levels of disease prevention and can be of
great help in maximizing the gains from preventive behavior. For example at the primary
prevention level — you could educate people to practice some of the preventive behaviors,
such as having a balanced diet so that they can protect themselves from developing
diseases in the future.
 At the secondary level, you could educate people to visit their local health center when
they experience symptoms of illness, such as fever, so they can get early treatment for
their health problems.
 At the tertiary level, you could educate people to take their medication appropriately and
find ways of working towards rehabilitation from significant illness or disability.
References

1. Noncommunicable diseases. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018 (Factsheet;

http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ noncommunicable-diseases, accessed 9
December 2018).

2. WHO report on the health of refugees and migrants in Europe: no public health without
refugee and migrant health. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2018.

3. Global status report on noncommunicable diseases 2014. Geneva: World Health Organization;
2014 (http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/
handle/10665/148114/9789241564854_eng.pdf?sequence=1, accessed 9 December 2018).

4. Agyemang C, van den Born B-J. Non-communicable diseases in migrants: an expert review. J
Travel Med. 2018;107:1–9.

5. Slama S. The epidemiology of refugee and migrant health: noncommunicable diseases. In:
School on refugee and migrant health, Palermo, September 2018. Copenhagen: WHO Regional
Office for Europe; 2018 (Plenary session 4; http://
www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/384415/wssp-d2-s1-ss-eng. pdf, accessed 9
December 2018).

6. Strategy and action plan for refugee and migrant health in the WHO European Region.
Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2016 (EUR/RC66/8 + EUR/RC66/Conf.Doc./4;
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_
file/0004/314725/66wd08e_MigrantHealthStrategyActionPlan_160424. pdf?ua=1, accessed 9
December 2018).

7. Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases 2013–2020.
Geneva: World Health Organization; 2013 (http://apps.who.int/
iris/bitstream/handle/10665/94384/9789241506236_eng.pdf?sequence=1,