{"id":480093,"date":"2010-03-27T17:04:18","date_gmt":"2010-03-27T21:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.circleofblue.org\/waternews\/?p=13778"},"modified":"2010-03-27T17:04:18","modified_gmt":"2010-03-27T21:04:18","slug":"2010-stockholm-water-prize-awarded-to-american-water-and-public-health-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/480093","title":{"rendered":"2010 Stockholm Water Prize Awarded to American Water and Public Health Expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stockholm Water Prize Laureate is Rita Colwell, for her research into preventing waterborne infectious diseases. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Colwell won the prize for \u201cnumerous seminal contributions towards solving the world\u2019s water and water-related public health problems,\u201d the Stockholm Water Prize Nominating Committee wrote in a statement. While her work \u201chas established the basis for environmental and infectious disease risk assessment used around the world,\u201d Colwell focused on preventing the spread of cholera.<\/p>\n

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RITA COLWELL:<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"Rita<\/div>\n
Dr. Rita Colwell, 76, winner of the 2010 Stockholm Water Prize.<\/div>\n
More about Rita Colwell…<\/a><\/div>\n
Photo \u00a9 SIWI <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The 76-year-old professor at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health discovered that cholera-causing bacteria can go dormant, then later revert to an infectious state. Therefore, bodies of water frequently store the bacteria, even absent an outbreak of the disease.<\/p>\n

“These findings counteracted the conventional wisdom held that cholera (could only enter) the environment … due to release of sewage,\u201d the Stockholm International Water Institute said in a statement. \u201cAs a result of her work, scientists are now able to link changes in the natural environment to the spread of disease.”<\/p>\n

Cholera is a waterborne disease that each year affects between three and five million people worldwide, according to SIWI, and causes an estimated 120,000 deaths.<\/p>\n

Colwell was among the first to link the spread of diseases, including cholera, to climate change, SIWI scientific director Per-Arne Malmqvist told reporters<\/a> at an announcement in Stockholm. She also led experiments on the impact of El Ni\u00f1o on human health and aquatic environmental stability in the United States.<\/p>\n

Expanding beyond research initiatives, Colwell helped spread community-based water safety education and practical, inexpensive technologies for better drinking water and sanitation in Latin and South America in the 90s.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s held multiple positions during her decades of work in water-related fields, spanning advisory roles in the U.S. government, non-profit science and policy organizations and private foundations.<\/p>\n

Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf will present the award and $150,000 prize sum to Colwell September 9 in Stockholm.<\/p>\n

Since 1991, the prize has been awarded annually to people, institutes or organizations working to preserve water resources, improve public health and protect the ecosystem.<\/p>\n

Sources: Bay Ledger News Zone, Associated Foreign Press<\/a>, Stockholm International Water Institute<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stockholm Water Prize Laureate is Rita Colwell, for her research into preventing waterborne infectious diseases. Colwell won the prize for \u201cnumerous seminal contributions towards solving the world\u2019s water and water-related public health problems,\u201d the Stockholm Water Prize Nominating Committee wrote in a statement. While her work \u201chas established the basis for environmental and infectious disease […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5510,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5510"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}