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Clean water can cut diarrhoea by 21% - Oguntola

Clean water can cut diarrhoea by 21% - Oguntola
By Gift Chanda
Tue 16 Oct. 2012, 11:50 CAT

THE UN's Economic Commission for Africa says simple interventions such as washing hands and safe drinking water storage can reduce diarrhoea incidences by as much 35 per cent.

Speaking on the occasion of the Global Handwashing Day yesterday, ECA senior regional advisor in charge of Integrated Water Resources Management, Johnson Oguntola, said improved water supply reduces 21 per cent of diarrhoeal disease rates and 38 per cent when providing basic sanitation facilities.

"The risk factor; 'water, sanitation and hygiene' comprises a number of interrelated transmission pathways, composed of competing or complementing events for causing disease. Fecal-oral diseases account for an important part of this disease burden," said Oguntola, adding that the ideal situation is to provide access to clean water and safe sanitation for everyone to reduce transmission of diarrhoeal disease through water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

Zambia yesterday joined the rest of the world in commemorating Global Handwashing Day.

The celebration was symbolically marked by setting up two hand-washing stations outside the UN House, where visitors and passers-by were encouraged to perform the hand-washing "ritual".

According to ECA, the significance of hand-washing was traced to the failure to provide improved water supply services and safe sanitation services to billions of people worldwide.

The Millennium Development Goal which seeks to "reduce by half the proportion of people without access to improved water sources and safe sanitation" was meant to address this problem.

Labels: WATER

posted by MrK @ 2:40 PM