Our research team @ActionResear just completed the first phase of our water quality mapping project in Lahore. We collected and analyzed water samples from over 400 locations and discovered 6 major E.coli hotspots in the city. A 🧵. #waterquality#Lahore
Fecal contamination detected in water samples from Chungi Ammar Sidhu, Charar, Kirianwala, Kharas Mohalla, Mustafaabad, and Kot Khawaja Saeed. #WaterContamination#Pakistan
Our team is moving on to the next phase of research to assess water quality in these areas by collecting a larger number of samples. We've already conducted an extensive study of Chungi Ammar Sidhu and found that 45% of the 72 samples we collected were contaminated with E.coli.
We are also working on detecting the points of contamination in these neighborhoods.
Our team is also investigating the prevalence of water-borne diseases in these areas. We surveyed 200 households in Chungi and found that 37% of people had diarrhea or skin infections in the past two weeks. #PublicHealth
Water samples collected from affluent areas like DHA, Model Town, Gulberg, and Bahria Town were free from E.coli contamination. It's no coincidence that mainly low-income neighborhoods are facing these issues. #watercontamination#inequality#EnvironmentalJustice
During the #COVID19 pandemic, what is spreading along the virus with same intensity is misleading information about the virus. We studied the COVID19-related conversations on Pakistani Twitter, focusing on politics, health, and rumors.
A🧵showcasing our initial observations.
We collected the tweets with Pakistan-specific hashtags. The tweets with the highest virality were analyzed for their content, language, sentiment, etc. The data are presented on the #infodemic tab of our 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 website. covidinpakistan.com/analytics/
What is infodemic? It refers to an overflow of information, including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak. who.int/health-topics/…
I was not going to tweet about #COVID19 because I am not a virologist and, this is not really my area of work. But now EVERYONE is tweeting about this virus and even sharing biological data/papers that they don’t understand. So, I think it is important to clarify a few things.
The virus causing COVID19, SARS-CoV-2, is a product of natural evolution and not a product of deliberate genetic engineering (So, it was not made in any lab by an evil scientist). It is confirmed in this excellent article that was published two days back. nature.com/articles/s4159…
Also, this virus is thought to be zoonotic (that spread from non-human animals to humans) in origin, but the animal reservoir is not yet known. Also, it is not only the “haram” animals that can be the “animal source” for epidemics.