|
|
Home  Articles Unsafe Water and Poor Sanitation Causes 4000 Children to Die Each Day Sanitation and Ventilation System in Hometown Articles
|
Unsafe Water and Poor Sanitation Causes 4000 Children to Die Each Day |
|
|
|
|
More people are affected by the negative impact of poor water supply and sanitation than by war, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction combined, states a paper published in this week's issue of The Lancet.
The article is the fifth in a series of papers summarising the key conclusions of the Millennium Project-a three-year independent advisory effort commissioned by UN Secretary-General KofiAnnan to review progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The MDG's commit the international community to address extreme poverty, with quantitative targets set for the year 2015.
Jamie Bartram (World Health Organisation) and colleagues write that poor sanitation and a lack of safe drinking water is a 'silent humanitarian crisis' that kills some 3900 children everyday and thwarts progress to the MDG's, especially in Africa and Asia. While sufficient progress has been made to reach the overall target of halving the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water between 1990 and 2015, meeting this target will still leave hundreds of millions of people without safe drinking water, particularly in east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The article calls for immediate concerted efforts to confront the reality that sanitation coverage rates in the developing world barely keep pace with population growth. Four out of ten people in the world do not have access to a simple pit latrine.
The authors state that although access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation can have a strong positive effect on human health, the development and management of water resources as a whole has significant health implications. Man-made reservoirs and irrigation schemes help provide food and nutrition but they can also form ideal habitats for intensified transmission of schistosomiasis, an infection caused by a type of flatworm. Irrigation infrastructure and management of irrigation can be designed to keep transmission to a minimum. Improving irrigation to avoid standing or slow-moving water and improving disposal of household wastewater can also reduce mosquito breeding and transmission of malaria.
The paper recommends dramatic scaling up of efforts, involving the expansion of safe drinking water and sanitation coverage, in order to meet the MDG water and sanitation target by 2015. The authors write that this requires neither colossal sums of money nor scientific breakthroughs or technological advances.
|
|
|
Recent Post |
Home Sanitation and Ventilation
Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic wastewater (sewage, sullage, greywater), industrial wastes, and agricultural wastes. Hygienic means of prevention can be by using engineering solutions (e.g. sewerage and wastewater treatment), simple technologies (e.g. latrines, septic tanks), or even by personal hygiene practices (e.g. simple handwashing with soap).
Read More
Sanitation in the hometown
If you've worked in a nuclear radiation area, you understand about step-off pads. You understand how to contain contaminants. The concept is very simple: don't put something clean onto something dirty. In the home, that concept often goes unheeded. Consequently, people make themselves sick by turning their homes into "centres of sickness."
You can turn your home into a centre of wellness, if you know what to do. Follow these tips, and you'll be well on your way:
Read More
An International Sanitation Trend
Many countries are planning to implement ecological sanitation projects on a national scale. For example, in the last five years, the number of countries working on ecosan projects with the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit, a German development organization, has nearly tripled, from 15 in 2002 to 44 in 2007. In China, one project involving GTZ and others started with 70 ecosan users and has since grown to more than 1 million participants. India, where almost half of the country's 1.1 billion residents lack sanitation, is a focus for ecosan practitioners, according to Sören Rüd, junior expert on ecosan at GTZ.
Read More
Good Brewing Sanitation
Sanitation is critical to brewing good beer at home. Even the slightest contamination of fermenting or finished beer can ruin a perfectly good batch. This week, we take a look at good sanitation techniques for home brewers.
Anything that comes in contact with your wort or beer after it has been boiled should be both washed and sanitized. Items used prior to boiling should be washed, but need not be sanitized as boiling the wort will sanitize it.
Read More
Unsafe Water and Poor Sanitation Causes 4000 Children to Die Each Day
More people are affected by the negative impact of poor water supply and sanitation than by war, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction combined, states a paper published in this week's issue of The Lancet.
The article is the fifth in a series of papers summarising the key conclusions of the Millennium Project-a three-year independent advisory effort commissioned by UN Secretary-General KofiAnnan to review progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The MDG's commit the international community to address extreme poverty, with quantitative targets set for the year 2015.
Read More
|
|