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than 1.5 billion people in the Asia-Pacific region still
lack basic sanitation, such as access to a
toilet—leaving them vulnerable to preventable diseases
such as cholera, worms, diarrhea, pneumonia and
malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization
(WHO).
The
United Nations declared 2008 as the International Year
of Sanitation. Sanitation is also the theme for the
World Water Day 2008 which was observed on March 22 (in
the
Philippines,
owing to Holy Week, it will be March 26).
The
theme for World Water Day 2008 is “Sanitation Matters,”
to highlight the fact that 2.6 billion people worldwide
live without toilets in their homes and are vulnerable
to numerous health risks.
“Water
and sanitation will become the most pressing
environmental issue of this century,” said Dr. James
Bartram, coordinator of WHO’s water, sanitation and
health program.
Bartram
said that for roughly half the developing world, safe
and reliable water is not accessible. The result is the
daily tragedy of waterborne disease, which claims
thousands of lives each day, Bartram told the
BusinessMirror.
According to a recent WHO study, for every one dollar
spent on sanitation there is an economic return of nine
dollars, and that halving the number of people without
access to clean drinking water would result in a gain of
$66 billion annually.
Bartram
noted that enhanced support for improving sanitation
will save lives and speed up progress toward reaching
the Millennium Development Goals, eight antipoverty
objectives with a target date of 2015.
“Lack of
adequate sanitation has a serious impact on health and
social development. Even if the target is achieved, 1. 7
billion people—almost a quarter of humanity—would be
left without access to even a simple improved latrine in
2015,” said Bartram.
In the
Philippines, over 25 million Filipinos don’t have access
to the basic sanitation afforded by toilet facilities;
another 13 million don’t have proper water
resources—without plumbing or communal water taps, many
rely on creek water and deep wells which can often be
unsafe for human consumption.
According to the latest World Bank Environment Monitor
report on the Philippines, air and water pollution,
along with poor sanitation and hygiene practices are the
most significant environment-related health risks.
The
situation is worse in remote areas, especially in rural
and upland areas—not only do most households not have
their own toilets, neither are communal or public
toilets widely available. As a result, many dispose of
their waste in open fields, creeks, rivers or grassy
areas, posing serious health risks to everyone in the
community.
Last
year the United Nations Children’s Fund responded to the
sanitation emergency in the
Philippines by
donating over 6,000 toilet bowls for distribution to the
remote villages of the Mountain Province in the Northern
Philippines.
While
the local government of
Mountain
Province is ready to subsidize water access for small
villages, they still rely on villagers to fetch their
own water and transport it to their homes through often
difficult terrain to “flush” their toilets. |
