World Water Day
March 22 has been designated as World Water Day by the United Nations since 1993. While progress has been made in meeting the Millennium goals, approximately 800 million people are still without clean drinking water. This problem is exacerbated by poor water storage conditions, lack of basic sanitation facilities and hygienic practices.
About 40 percent of the world’s population does not have access to latrines or other facilities for daily use. It is also estimated that approximately 40 percent of all hospital beds in developing countries are used by those suffering from water borne diseases such as cholera, typhus, hepatitis A and diarrhea. Approximately 3000 children die each day of diarrhea.
Water can be made safe by pasteurization which requires heating water to 149° degrees Fahrenheit to kill bacteria and viruses that cause water borne diseases. It is not necessary to heat water to boiling temperatures to make it safe. While boiling will kill bacteria which cause diseases, the amount of fuel used to raise the temperature level of pasteurization to boiling can be better used for other purposes. The pasteurization can be done using traditional heating methods or through the use of simple solar cookers made of cardboard and aluminum foil found in discarded food packaging. Additional methods of making water safe include chemical treatment with products such as chlorine. Some filters are also effective if maintained and used properly.
In Kenya, International Water and Health Alliances (IWHA) provides a chlorine based water treatment called Water Guard to make water safe to drink. The cost of this product is only 25 U.S. cents for an amount adequate to treat 1000 liters of water.
One third of the world’s population continues to cook over open fires. The smoke produced by these fires causes respiratory illnesses while depleting ground cover to help protect watershed areas. Women often search for fuel three to four times a week and spend as much as six hours walking to find cooking fuel. This physical effort takes a great deal of time away from the family, contributes to ailments such as back and neck strain and could be avoided by using simple solar cookers at least part of the year in sun rich countries.
To resolve these issues of water borne diseases, sanitation and respiratory illnesses, an integrated program of development working with local community committees is most effective. Isolating one problem such as poor quality drinking water without instruction in how to store safe water properly or sanitary or adequate hygienic practices will continue to see the existence of high rates of disease. Where these integrated practices are implemented we see a decline in disease.
As one example of improvement, we can look at statistics that were prepared by the Kenyan Ministry of Health of the Katitio Health Centre, Central Location,Lower Nyakach, 2012. This is a community where IWHA provides monthly support for the purchase of water treatment which is chlorine based. The products are WaterGuard or AguaGuard and are distributed by staff and volunteers of the the Friends of the Old Program (FOTO) described in other sections of the IWHA web site.
January July November
Families provided
With WaterGuard 0 400 800_____
Disease cases:
Clinical malaria 256 196 319_____
Diarrhea 145 46 30_____
Typhoid Fever 18 13 0_____
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