Home
Proper toilet facilities can save world's 1.8 million children from diarrhea-death annually! UN Report
Share
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
Stumble Upon
Technorati
Mixx
Sphinn
Twitter
SphereIt
Propeller
Gmarks
Newsvine
Yahoo! My Web
Live Journal
Blinklist
E-mailMade Popular Nov 17 2006
The health of 2.6 billion people in the developing world is in jeopardy! The prime culprit is a lack of toilets. According to a new study, lack of proper sanitation facilities have been forcing billions to discard their excrement in bags, buckets, fields, and ditches, leading to infectious disease-related deaths like cholera, diarrhea, typhoid, and parasites.
What is the secret behind much of Europe and North America not facing these disease-related problems?
It is that, they built sanitation systems in the 1800s — keeping humans and their drinking water away from these pathogen-bearing fecal matters.
In contrast, nearly every other person in the developing world today lacks access to improved sanitation.
According to a report commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
• 1.1 billion people — one-sixth of the world’s population — get their water from sources contaminated by human and animal feces,
• 1.8 million children die annually from diarrhea. It could have been prevented simply by having a clean place to go to the bathroom,
• Roughly half of all developing countries’ people have an illness related to sanitation and water quality.
The report says,
The lack of a safe, private, and convenient toilet is a daily source of indignity and undermines health, education, and income generation.
Though the costs of the global ’sanitation deficit’ are severe, the report following up on the UN’s Millennium Development Goals pledges to provide sanitation to 120 million additional people every year between now and 2015.
Add Images and Videos
Close X
Recommended Tags or Keywords
Search by Tags or Keywords
Selected Media ( You can Upload only Six media )
Sorry no picture found for this combination of tags. Try to search minimum number of tags at once
RSS 
Most of the developing countries are facing the similar problem. Open toilet causes the outbreak of Norovirus. It causes stomach flu and diarrhea. Noroviruses are found in the stool most of the time. It can spread easily from person to person. To keep the kids away from the disease, public health departments should take care of basic facilities of common people.
This is the main problem in developing countries, a major part of the population cannot even afford the basic necessities that is a house, clothes and even bread to live... how can we expect them to think about building a Toilet and using water filters for clean water.
This problem is more serious than the govt. agencies are thinking it to be.
If we can reduce poverty then all such kind of stats will automatically be reduced...
I think that the main problem is poverty and not the lack of proper sanitation systems...
This problem is more serious than the govt. agencies are thinking it to be.
If we can reduce poverty then all such kind of stats will automatically be reduced...
I think that the main problem is poverty and not the lack of proper sanitation systems...
The developing nations are not being able to position themselves to provide hygienic requirements due to lack of fund allocations from out side and at home they are in no position to divert their limited economic source in that direction substantially.
Therefore, in developing nations this problem is a child of a marriage between poverty and development, as the millions of people are forced to drink contaminated water which is a product of industrialization and development.
Moreover, now onus should on the developed countries to divert their effort to address this problem and help developing nations to fight against this menace.
Therefore, in developing nations this problem is a child of a marriage between poverty and development, as the millions of people are forced to drink contaminated water which is a product of industrialization and development.
Moreover, now onus should on the developed countries to divert their effort to address this problem and help developing nations to fight against this menace.
The figures are shocking. One of the major problems in most of the developing countries is the illiteracy. People need to be educated properly so that they can understand the significance of sanitation system. If the laymen will be educated in a proper way about the sanitation and its relation to health, I don\’t think it will be too tough for UN to complete its task. Another thing is that, for the developing countries, development is the top-notch concern and for that these countries go for large scale industrialization. This can be taken as a positive step on one front but the chemical waste that is being disposed in the water (rivers, lakes etc.) is increasingly adding to the problem of infectious disease-related deaths. Industrialization is not bad but at the cost of the lives of the citizens of a nation is indeed not good. It\’s much better to look out for some alternatives for proper dispose of the industrial wastes and save the very less fresh water resources we have on our earth.
Lack of proper sanitation is the bane of poor countries. It is not only the major causes of diseases like cholera etc as Irani writes, but also acts as an incubator of diseases that humankind is trying to eradicate like polio.
I agree with Ankit that fresh and potable water is dearer than gold in many parts of the world including our country. However, there are simple methods that can achieve the goal of having good sanitation facilities. For example, creating public lavatories in the villages with simple but durable materials would save space and limit the playground of disease bearing vectors.
People from the poor nations that include people from rural India excrete in open fields, roadsides, parks etc. They lack the will to have proper sanitation facilities for themselves. The mindsets need to be changed within the rural and poorer societies. Collective awakening is what is needed to get rid out of it.
There can be no excuse for not having proper sanitation. Billions of dollars worth of health and lifestyle upliftment aid is distributed in the poor countries through programs that of WHO, Medecins Sans Frontieres, UNICEF. Yet, the mindsets of an overwhelming majority of those poor societies remained abysmally pathetic.
#postcomment
I agree with Ankit that fresh and potable water is dearer than gold in many parts of the world including our country. However, there are simple methods that can achieve the goal of having good sanitation facilities. For example, creating public lavatories in the villages with simple but durable materials would save space and limit the playground of disease bearing vectors.
People from the poor nations that include people from rural India excrete in open fields, roadsides, parks etc. They lack the will to have proper sanitation facilities for themselves. The mindsets need to be changed within the rural and poorer societies. Collective awakening is what is needed to get rid out of it.
There can be no excuse for not having proper sanitation. Billions of dollars worth of health and lifestyle upliftment aid is distributed in the poor countries through programs that of WHO, Medecins Sans Frontieres, UNICEF. Yet, the mindsets of an overwhelming majority of those poor societies remained abysmally pathetic.
#postcomment
Becos of improper toilet facilities one sees lots of unwelcome sights:
People using railway tracks as toilets
People shitting in drains and gutters.
Men using just about every place to relieve themselves.
All this leads to ground water pollution so much so that our water table is getting poisoned.
People using railway tracks as toilets
People shitting in drains and gutters.
Men using just about every place to relieve themselves.
All this leads to ground water pollution so much so that our water table is getting poisoned.
Undeniably, the report presents a gloomy picture of human society. Need of the hour is to educate the rural mass before going for a far-reaching step.
The report really brings forth the bizarre picture of human society, it is dire need of the authority concerned to educate the people before going for a far-reaching step.
the image portrays poverty more than main theme, ’bad-sanitation’… ! I agree with Jolly coz to improve deplete these horrible figures u hav to start with fundamentals…..n all the developing countries r more possessive abt upliftment of GDP n if there b gud economy, obviously then the namtions can think abt hygiene thing…………
The health of the nation decides its future prosperity but one look at these figures tells us the shocking state of affairs in our developing countries. You can have funding from n-numbers of sources but will not be counted under developed nation until a common man gets a clean safe and good environment.
It is on this index of providing clean and sanitized facilities that these developing countries are lacking.
It is on this index of providing clean and sanitized facilities that these developing countries are lacking.
these figures really wraps out horrific pictures of the world.
No doubt, the report gives an ominous delineation and we surely need to educate people about this. But, with many countries in Africa as well as Asia struggling to provide handful of food to their folk, to ask for a hygienic sanitation facilities is too a big thing.
Don’t you think we are deviating from the basic need (food) of human existence??????????
Don’t you think we are deviating from the basic need (food) of human existence??????????
A very sad figure to startle anyone...
I think this report will give a new agenda to our honorable ministers for forthcoming elections.
I wonder what will their slogan besn :)
I think this report will give a new agenda to our honorable ministers for forthcoming elections.
I wonder what will their slogan besn :)
We, at The Independent Media Of India, take this opportunity to congratulate you for the initiative for highlighting the issue, ’lack of toilets’, we mean ’lack of sanitation’. We wish to put on records, that the so-called slum in Mumbai, Dharavi, is developed with buildings and housing complexes and still doesnt have the required toilets for the slum-dwellers. They use roads and by-passes as toilets. Sorry, needless to say even though Dharavi is the largest slum in Asia on records, we would like you to look at a slum at Antoophill, Wadala East in Mumbai. We believe that the area, viz, Sangam Nagar, Shanti Nagar, Azad Mohalla, behind the Central Government Quarters, is the largest slum in Asia. Please do a follow-up, if you can...
Keep the spirit up. With best regards... The Team Verdict.
Keep the spirit up. With best regards... The Team Verdict.
This is slightly puzzling that why people are so shocked to see these figures since the problem and figures are ever-present with us as we are living with it. All what we required is to help the government, world bodies and NGO’s to formulate and execute effective planning in this direction.
Therefore, what are your views in this regard?
Therefore, what are your views in this regard?
Add your Comment
There are still many villages in India which are devoid of any water (leave fresh water) sources. Villagers still have to walk from 2-10 kms per day to get water for their homes.
One of the most important things government of developing countries should check is mismanagement of water resources. Due to negligience fresh water sources are getting polluted. Milions of tons of waste per day are disposed in nearby waters, including industrial, chemical and human wastes according to reports from World Watch Institute.