Uganda: Leaders told to fight diarrhoea

July 23, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Non-government organisations have asked African heads of state slated to meet in Kampala to fight diarrhoea in children under the age of five. A report ¹ published by the Lancet medical journal last month indicates that diarrhoea has overtaken pneumonia as the top killer of children on the continent, with 2,000 children dying everyday because of the disease.

"The biggest killer of children under the age of five in Africa is in danger of being entirely overlooked at this week's African Union summit in Uganda," reads a statement from Water Aid, an international organisation working to provide safe domestic water, sanitation and hygiene education to the world's poorest communities. "These are deaths that are preventable through access to sanitation, hygiene education and clean water."

The report indicated that although diarrhoea and pneumonia do not make global headlines like HIV/Aids and malaria, they kill an estimated 3.5 million children under the age of five each year globally – more than HIV and malaria combined.

Ms Yunia Musaazi, the WaterAid's policy adviser in East Africa, yesterday said: "If African leaders are serious about tackling child deaths across our continent, they must tackle diarrhoea, the biggest killer of our children." "Only if improved access to sanitation is addressed will we see any kind of progress on the fourth MDG (Millennium Development Goal) of reduce child mortality by two-thirds."

Source: Gerald Bareebe, The Monitor /allAfrica.com, 22 July 2010

¹ Black, R.E. .. et al (2010). 'Global, regional, and national causes of child mortality in 2008 : a systematic analysis'. In: The lancet, vol. 375, no. 9730, p. 1969 – 1987

Liberia: No relief as most Monrovians go without toilets

December 30, 2008 · Leave a Comment

With just one in 25 Liberians having access to a toilet, most [practice open defecation].

Liberia's 3.5 million people share just 19,690 toilets, according to a government water and sanitation sector assessment from October 2008, and fewer than one in three Liberians have access to safe drinking water, according to the head of Liberia's Water and Sewer Corporation, Hun-Bu Tulay.

Poor water and sanitation infrastructure contributes to high child deaths from malaria and diarrhoea, which kill 42 percent and 22 percent of Liberian children under age five, respectively, according to the NGO members of the water and sanitation or 'WASH' consortium in Liberia.

[...] Congested housing, no requirement that landlords provide working toilets, and virtually no urban planning have combined to create lethal sanitation conditions in the capital, [WASH consortium advocacy manager Muyatwa Sitali] Sitali said.

[...] In the Monrovia neighbourhood of West Point up to 70,000 people share 32 public washrooms which have four functioning toilets among them. "And this is one of the better managed water and sanitation areas in the capital," Sitali said.

The decrepit infrastructure means toilet-users may have to use up to four gallons of water each time they flush, according to civil servant Florence Nimely, who lives in the city-centre. "At US 25 cents a gallon, for some it is a choice between flushing and affording to buy food at the end of the day," Nimely said.

[...] "When some of my neighbours defecate they cannot get enough water to flush their toilets, so they sometimes throw the faeces around the place, exposing us all to health hazards," Monrovia shopkeeper Samuel Tweh told IRIN.

[...] The government needs US$143 million to revitalise the water and sanitation network, according to the latest poverty reduction strategy issued at an April 2008 Liberia donor conference in Bonn, Germany, but as of May 2008 just $57.5 million had been committed.

[...] The Liberian government recently launched its 2008-2011 sanitation management programme, which aims to deliver clean water to half of Monrovia's residents by 2011, and improve access across all 15 regions.

WASH consortium members Oxfam GB, Concern, Tearfund, Action Contre La Faim, and Solidarité plan to help the government reach its goals, with funding from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Union's humanitarian branch, ECHO, and Irish Aid. UNICEF and the African Development Bank are also providing assistance.

Source: IRIN, 19 Nov 2008

Uganda: African leaders told to improve sanitation, provide clean water

African leaders have been urged to address issues relating to sanitation and water as one of the major components in reducing maternal and infant mortality in the continent.

Yunia Musaazi, the East African policy advisor for Water Aid, said for African countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it was important to prevent deaths resulting from diarrhoea, which is the biggest killer of children in Africa.

"Everyday, 2,000 African children die from diarrhoea. These deaths are preventable by providing safe water and maintaining sanitation," Musaazi said.

She was speaking as one of the panelists drawn from civil society organisations across Africa to demand better health services from leaders ahead of the African Heads of State summit scheduled for July 25 to 27.

The theme of this year's summit is how to make rapid progress in addressing the MDGs that deal with the survival of mothers, infants and children.

Musaazi explained that with good sanitation and safe water, the lives of mothers and their children could significantly be addressed, thereby reducing the number of deaths from unsafe water and poor sanitation.

"An expectant mother needs to deliver from a clean environment. Even after leaving the health centre, she needs to live in a clean environment with clean water for her and the newborn baby," Musaazi said.

She said a recent study by the World Health Organisation estimates that 28% of child deaths were caused by poor sanitation and lack of access to clean water.

"Sanitation and safe water could prevent nine out of 10 cases of diarrhoea. Using toilets can reduce incidences of diarrhoea by nearly 40%.

Safe sanitation also reduces other leading causes of child deaths, such as under-nutrition and pneumonia," Musaazi said.

Solome Kimbugwe Nakaweesi, the executive director of Akina Mama Wa Africa, asked African leaders to honour their commitment of allocating 15% of their national budgets to the health sector as agreed in the Abuja declaration.

Nakaweesi said there were many African countries, including Uganda, that had not implemented the Abuja declaration.

She said Uganda was among the African countries that were failing to reduce maternal and infant mortality.

Source: Charles Ariko, New Vision / allAfrica.com, 18 July 2010

South Africa, Cape Town: escaped hippo shipped out of sewerage works

July 7, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A young hippo has been shipped out of a Cape Town sewerage works, where he made his home after fleeing a nature reserve where he had clashed with his father.

The four-year-old nicknamed "Zorro" fled the Rondevlei Nature Reserve outside Cape Town in February 2009 for the lush grass and abundant water of the Cape Flats Waste Water Treatment Works (CFWWTW). He got his nickname due to the zigzag scar on his back, caused by his father's tusks during fighting.

The Waste Water Treatment Works adjacent to Zeekoevlei and Rondevlei is part of the False Bay Coastal Park, a core area in the City's Biodiversity Network. The hippos at Rondevlei are a keystone species in Rondevlei, one of the City's 24 nature reserves.

Thieves had made off with part of the reserve's fence, creating an opening for 1 200-kilo Zorro to escape.

Reserve staff put up an electric fence around 22 hectares to contain him around a water pan and baited a capture "boma" enclosure, said Dalton Gibbs of the city's nature conservation department.

Once Zorro had entered the capture boma, staff loaded him into a crate and moved him to his new home, a private reserve in nearby Worcester.

"The natural cycle is the dominant male will chase out younger males out of the herd," Gibbs said about the hippo's escape. "It's a fairly normal process."

Zorro is not first hippo to have escaped from the Rondevlei Nature Reserve. In 2004 there was another escape artist, who was nicknamed … Houdini.

Promoting Ecological Sanitation in Kenya - Part 2/4

River Nyamwamba at the verge of extinction. Will there still be life in Kasese?

A global forum for indigenous peoples, small islands and vulnerable communities

Submitted by Visitor on Mon, 17/08/2009 - 16:11.

Author: 

Twebaze Paul

River Nyamwamba is located in Kasese district in Western Uganda and is fed by melting glaciers from the mountains of the moon, (Rwenzori Mountain). It emerges from the mountain and flows to Lake George in the Albertine Rift. The once famous river known to support life and irrigational agriculture in Mubuku irrigation scheme has continuously been hurt by climate change and it is feared that soon its life will end. Until recently the people of Kasese area have entirely depended on the river as the main source of water for both agriculture and domestic use.

Previously the region had a bimodal climate, with two rainy seasons. One started in March and lasted until June. The second lasted from October until December. However these seasons have changed drastically to the extent that it is hard to predict the weather conditions and many dangers have come up as a result. Baluku Yofesi a farmer in Kasese District in western Uganda describes the changes as;-

"We used to have much more rainfall than we are having now, that's one big change, and to me this area is hotter than 20 years ago. Until about 1988 the climate was okay, we had two rainy seasons and they were very reliable. Now the March to June season in particular isn't reliable, which doesn't favor the crops we grow. On contrast the first rains come so hard and sweep away both crops and the soil causing massive land slides".

These changes mainly affected the subsistence farmers who depended on rain fed crops. The unreliability of rainfall made the area entirely depend on the river for irrigation where early mature varieties have since been emphasized leading to the disappearance of native traditional varieties.

The subsistence farmers who are experiencing the pinch of climate change have resorted to planting crop varieties which mature faster. Mr Baluku, a resident of Karughe says that because of the reduced rains, one has to go for fast-maturing varieties, and in the process, crops like pumpkin, cassava and beans have disappeared. Some of the farmers have stopped adopting seasonal planting and now try to plant all the time in case the rains come. They continuously plant seeds and this leads to wastage since not all of them produce crops.

The continued melting of glaciers from Mountain Rwenzori due to high temperatures is causing the river to carry more water down the stream as it dries up. During the morning, one can hardly see water in the river. In the middle of the hot day when ice has melted the water comes in large quantities with potential to sweep away bridges, crops and even flooding to people's houses down stream.

The people living around Mountain Rwenzori have cultural values attached to it, thus the effects of climate on these people do not only affect their activities but cultures as well. Kule Musinguzi, a resident of Kasese believes that the snow on top of Rwenzori Mountain is key to the survival of his tribesmen. The name 'Abanyarwenzururu', he says, means 'people from the land of snow'. This makes Musinguzi and his tribesmen more worried about the melting glaciers supplying river Nyamwamba. They believe that when the snow disappears completely the people will disappear as well.

The current climatic changes and behavior of the river is believed to be controlled by the gods who live in the mountain. It is believed that when the gods become un happy and irritated they release a lot of disastrous water at ago aimed at punishing the community for wrong doing. Residents remain uncertain of how they will live minus the river.

ByTwebazePaul,
Pro-biodiversity conservationists in Uganda (PROBICOU).

Nile Basin: Water crisis emerging

July 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A water crisis is emerging in the Nile Basin where some 300 million people in Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi rely on the Nile indirectly and directly along its 6,741-kilometre stretch. In 1999 the countries of the Nile Basin formed the Nile Basin Initiative. Since then there have been a number of disputes between Egypt and Sudan on the one hand and a challenge by the other countries on the validity of the Nile Water Agreement, which they claim is an unjust colonial relic and should not be applicable in a post-independent Africa. Sahel Blog has been following the present dispute which appears to be at a stalemate with Egypt and Sudan refusing to join the others in a water sharing agreement:

'The nations that signed the agreement in May – Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Kenya – will not back down. But they will need help to bring the agreement into being. The five signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries – Egypt, Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – one year to join the pact. The new deal would need at least six signatories to come into force. Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have not signed the deal yet and have so far been tight-lipped about whether they plan to or not. Egypt and Sudan are still saying no to the deal: Responding to the [latest] developments, Kamal Ali Mohamed, Sudan's water minister, said his country would now stop co-operating with the NBI because the agreement raised legal issues.'

Source: Sokari Ekine, Pambazuka News, 1 July 2010

Uganda: Cholera patients overwhelm Kayunga Hospital

July 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment

The increasing number of cholera patients being admitted in Kayunga hospital has overwhelmed the medical workers at the health unit. According to the District Director of Health services, Dr Ediriisa Musisi, 12 people have so far died of cholera since it broke out three weeks ago at Kawongo landing site in Galilaaya sub-county and Kisombwa village in Kayunga town.

He says the hospital has been receiving between two to three cholera patients daily since the outbreak. "Currently, many patients are receiving treatment while on the floor because all the hospital beds are occupied. The big numbers have also put a strain on the limited hospital resources," Dr Musisi said.

Kayunga Hospital, which was built in the 1960s with about 100 beds, now serves the districts of Kamuli, Luweero, Mukono and Nakasongola. Dr Musisi said a health task force led by the District Health Educator Mr Joseph Ssenoga has been sent to Kawongo landing site to sensitise residents on how to avoid catching the disease.

Dr Musisi says that despite being reminded by local leaders to dig pit latrines, the fishing community at the landing site has refused to comply and opted to defecate in the lake. He further revealed that the pit latrine coverage at the site stands at less than five per cent. "We have also engaged police and LCs to compel residents to dig pit latrines which are lacking at the landing site," Dr Musisi said.

Poor sanitation coupled with the current heavy rains being experienced in the area are to blame for the outbreak. Authorities in Kayunga town have announced a ban on the selling of locally made juice and selling of food on streets.

The town health inspector Richard Eberu said all commercial buildings which lack proper sanitation facilities like toilets will be closed. The Kayunga RDC, Ms Margaret Balyehuki has vowed to arrest any person whose home will be found lacking toilet.

"It's a shame that in this 21st century, we still have to force people to dig pit latrines. I have directed LCs to work with police to arrest family heads whose homes lack toilet facilities, which is the main reason we are experiencing a cholera epidemic."

The district is also grappling with the red eye disease which has so far affected several schools and trading centres. The District Inspector of Schools Mr Moses Olok says schools have been advised to send home any students with the disease to avoid spreading.

Source: Fred Muzaale, The Monitor / allAfrica.com, 1 July 2010

Africa: Water ‘must be foreign policy goal’

July 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment

An expert on water resource management has called on African governments to make water one of the key pillars of Africa's foreign policy.

Water is an economic lifeblood and features prominently in the Millennium Development Goals as a key resource.

Research cites drought-prone Africa's failure to invest in infrastructure to preserve water as one of the reasons for the continent's economic stagnation.

Reginald Tekateka, chairman of the technical advisory committee of the African Ministerial Conference on Water, told Business Day it was an "honest oversight" on the part of African governments not to have a "water attaché" at their embassies.

Mr Tekateka said he was not scolding African governments on the issue but he believed that water had not been "fully appreciated" as an important foreign policy goal.

Wafula Okumu, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security Studies and an expert on water policy, said water was increasingly becoming a security issue in Africa.

"We need to raise the alarm to draw attention to this matter," Dr Okumu said.

Water was considered a "soft issue" and was not put in the same league as other matters of economic importance in the execution of foreign policy, he said.

The third United Nations World Water Development report warned last year that countries were failing to use water in a sustainable fashion.

"Growing international trade in goods and services can aggravate water stress in some countries," it said.

Source: Loyiso Langeni, Business Day / (allAfrica.com, 2 July 2010

Sierra Leone: Villagers build latrines for better hygiene and child survival

November 1, 2008 · 1 Comment

Mahmud Konneh recently finished building a latrine in his village, Tilorma, in the Kenema District of eastern Sierra Leone. It is one of 30 new latrines that have been constructed by Tilorma villagers under the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach.

© UNICEF Sierra Leone/2008/Davies

[...] This sanitation initiative is being supported by UNICEF and the UK Department for International Development, in collaboration with the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health and Sanitation, and non-governmental partners.

Since the January 2008 introduction of CLTS in Sierra Leone, 103 villages have stopped practicing open defecation. As a result, the participating communities are cleaner, more hygienic and less likely to suffer from outbreaks of diarrhoea.

Source: Issa Davies, UNICEF, 28 Oct 2008

Botswana: Mayor blames Gaborone residents for pit latrine woes

June 30, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Residents of Self-Help Housing Agency (SHHA) in Gaborone have been blamed for the clogging of machines used to empty pit latrines in their residences.

"They are the ones who throw in hard objects like metals and blankets in the pit latrines which end up blocking the pipes and damaging the vacuum tankers as they vacuum the toilets," Gaborone mayor, Veronica Lesole said.

Lesole stated that they have held meetings in the SHHA areas to educate the public about not dumping certain objects in the pit latrines. "It is not failure on our part because the breakdown of the vacuum tankers is beyond our control and the residents have contributed to the breakdown themselves," she said. She indicated that the situation in the SHHA areas has forced the council to outsource services for emptying pit latrines. "The invitation to tender has been submitted to the government gazette which has gone for print as we speak. If it was failure on our part to arrest the situation, we would not be running around calling for tenders," the mayor said.

She explained that they called SHHA residents for a meeting to explain the problem just before the World Cup to discuss the problem but right now this is not possible. "Right now we thought that most people would be glued to their televisions watching football and might not come for the meetings. We will start calling them after the World Cup," she said.

Last week, Lesole said in her mayoral speech at the full council that lack of funds to purchase new tankers has resulted in a backlog of over 1,000 households with pit latrines and septic tanks that need to be emptied. She stated that the situation is serious as sewage is spilling over in most SHHA areas. She said a request has been made for the repair of the vacuum tankers to be expedited.

Source:

Chandapiwa Baputaki, MmegiOnline, 29 June 2010