Health, Hygiene and First Aid: Sanitation, Disease Links and Emergency Action
Health, Hygiene and First Aid tests personal and environmental hygiene, communicable disease control, and correct, safe first-aid actions for common household emergencies.
Hygiene basics
Handwashing with soap at critical times; safe drinking water (boiling, chlorination, filtration); covered food; sanitary latrine; safe waste disposal; and control of stagnant water and mosquito breeding.
Disease links
Malaria - female Anopheles mosquito; dengue - Aedes aegypti, a day-biter breeding in clean stagnant water; typhoid and diarrhoea - contaminated food and water; tuberculosis - droplet infection; worm infestation and anaemia are sanitation- and nutrition-linked.
First aid: priorities and actions
Check safety, check response, call for help, then airway–breathing–circulation.
- Burn: hold under cool running water 10–20 minutes, remove tight items, cover with a clean cloth. No ice, ghee, toothpaste or ink.
- Bleeding: direct pressure with a clean pad; elevate the limb.
- Fracture: immobilise with a splint in the found position; never straighten it.
- Snake bite: keep the person calm, the limb still and below heart level; no cutting, sucking or tight tourniquet.
- Fainting: lie flat and raise the legs. Heat stroke: shade, loosen clothes, cool with wet cloth, oral fluids only if conscious.
- Diarrhoea: ORS - 1 litre clean water, 6 level teaspoons sugar, half teaspoon salt.
Worked example
A child spills hot tea on the forearm. Act: move away from the source, hold the arm under running water for 15–20 minutes, slip off a tight bangle before swelling, cover loosely, and go to hospital if blistering is extensive. Reasoning: cooling limits heat penetration into deeper tissue, while ice constricts vessels and toothpaste traps heat and invites infection.
Traps
- Giving fluids to an unconscious person.
- Applying home remedies to burns.
- Cutting or sucking a snake bite.