Water and Sanitation - Africa

This blog will explore why diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation practices has such a large impact on communities in Africa. I am sure nearly everyone at some point either from eating bad food or form another reason has experienced diarrhoea. This for many people it is not regarded as a something that will end up killing you.  In Africa as this blog will explain  diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation and lack of toilets is a major life or death issue that cannot be ignored as harmless. The amount of deaths caused by diarrhoea in 2012 was the third largest killer, 644000 people in sub saharan Africa lost there lives. The factors that contribute are 1) Water contaminated faeces due to lack of facilities which can lead to infections caused by bacteria present such as Rotavirus and escherichia coli. 2) Poor personal hygiene 3) Food which are eaten or stored in dirty conditions  4) lack of education. Figure 1 Diarrhoeal disease Diarrhoea   is one of the three biggest facto

This Sunday the 19th is world toilet day, I thought it would be a great idea create a blog on what world toilet day is all about. What is it about ?  World Toilet day has been going since 2001 and created the World Toilet Organisation, by 2013 it was finally recognised as a official UN day in 2013.  It hopes to increase awareness about the problems that are being faced and raise more funding to improve sanitation. The subject has always been a topic that no one really liked to talk about and this day helps break down those barriers and get people involved  It all about inspiring action to try and help solve the global sanitation problem and to help achieve Goal 6 of the Sustainable development goal, which is to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, so the goal is that everyone should have a safe toilet by 2030 and untreated wastewater should be halved. Every year there is a different theme. This year it follows on the topic of wastewater fr

Just a short blog on an interesting story I have come across which relates to cholera that was discussed in the last blog. Many people would believe that the United Nations would operate in a non corrupt and ethical way, well you are wrong. In 2013 they were found to cover up the Cholera outbreak which killed 4000 people in Zimbabwe as they didn't want to upset Robert Mugable here is a great video and article on it. - click this  link . In 2013 the UN was also blamed for causing  the Haiti Cholera epidemic as sewage leaked from a UN camp into a river and it was also dumped outside. This polluted the waterways. Click the  link  here to read more