Open AccessCommunicable Diseases After the Disasters: with the Special Reference to the Great East Japan Earthquake
Author(s) -
Kentarô Iwata,
Goh Ohji,
Hideaki Oka,
Yoshihiro Takayama,
Tetsuji Aoyagi,
Yoshiaki Gu,
Mochammad Hatta,
Koichi Tokuda,
Mitsuo Kaku
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of disaster research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.332
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1883-8030
pISSN - 1881-2473
DOI - 10.20965/jdr.2012.p0746
Subject(s) - outbreak , medicine , incidence (geometry) , environmental health , virology , optics , physics
On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake – a massive temblor followed by a gigantic tsunami was associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Among many health problems such as trauma, drowning, and mental illnesses, infectious diseases may place significant burden on survivors of such disasters. Wound infections including tetanus, leptospirosis, legionellosis, rickettsiosis, respiratory infections, and diarrheal illness among other infections had been considered to be associated with earthquake and tsunami. Overall, the impact of infectious diseases after the Great East Japan Earthquake was relatively small, with only sporadic outbreaks observed. The incidence of serious infections such as tetanus, legionellosis, and tsunami lung, was also low, considering the overall impact of the earthquake and tsunami per se . This review discusses the impact of infectious diseases after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and reviews past disaster-related infections as reference.