WaterAid launches water, sanitation and hygiene campaign

WaterAid has launched “Healthy Start”, a four-year campaign to draw attention to the health and neo-natal mortality impacts of lack of Water, Sanitation And Hygiene (WASH).

Six of the 10 worst diseases plaguing the country right now, are related to water, sanitation and health, according to Dr. Sylvia Anie, a consultant of WaterAid Ghana.

She said, an estimated 4,000 children die annually in Ghana by the age of five, due to diarrhea.

In Ghana, more than 4,700 newborns died in 2013 alone, from infections related to poor water and hygiene.

According to WaterAid, one out of five newborn deaths (20 per cent) in Ghana could be prevented with the provision of safe water, observance of good sanitation and hand washing.

Meanwhile, 32 per cent of hospitals and clinics in Ghana do not have access to clean water and 6 per cent do not have basic toilet facilities, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report.

Furthermore, some hospitals and clinics regarded as having access to clean water actually have their water supply up to half a kilometer away, meaning that the 32 per cent is a likely underestimation.

Dr. Anie said sanitation remains the most lagging of the WASH millennium development goals (MDGs), with more than 2.5 billion (37 per cent) lacking access to sanitation.

She stressed the need for civil society to intensify education, communication and advocacy to increase budgetary allocations for health and WASH.

“At current rates, the MDG on sanitation cannot be met until the 23rd century, about 200 years from now”, Dr. Chaka Uzondo, Policy Manager of WaterAid said.

A breakdown in waste management, poor supply of potable water, pressure on public toilets, diversion of sewer lines to open drains and other misdoings, led to a cholera outbreak last year, the worst to have hit Ghana in 30 years.

Dr. Atsu Seake-Kwawu of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons noted that, there had been outbreaks of cholera every four to six years since the first outbreak in 1970.

“If certain structures had been put in place years before, we would not have had an outbreak the scale of which we had”, he said of last year’s outbreak.

Going forward, he said. “we need to start putting the necessary structures in place so that the next outbreak would not be worse.”