Madam – The importance of hygiene.
South Africa is experiencing drought, raising the risk to the population of health problems caused by poor water and sanitation. And, perhaps more importantly, women and children are unduly bearing the burden of water collection, walking miles to the nearest source, which is often unprotected and likely to be contaminated.
Climate change has affected water sources. Rainfall, usually an important source of water, has become rare. And due to increased rural-urban migration, pressure for the towns and cities to meet the water demand is ever increasing.
There has been much inefficiency in management of public utilities, in particular water and sanitation. The Department of Water and Sanitation together with South African municipalities are doing their best at offering basic services to South Africans, in particular basic utilities such as water and sanitation.
Access to clean water and sanitation is a right essential to the realisation of all human rights. That is defined as the right to sufficient, safe, acceptable and physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use.
Access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation is essential to human health and survival. Ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all is not only singularly fundamental to our development as a human race, it also underpins several of the other goals that the world is set.
Failure to ensure clean drinking water and basic levels of sanitation will hinder any efforts to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
Access to improved water and sanitation facilities does not, on its own, necessarily lead to improved health. There is now very clear evidence showing the importance of hygienic behaviour, in particular hand-washing with soap at critical times: after defecating and before eating or preparing food.
Hand-washing with soap can significantly reduce the incidence of diarrhoea, which is the second leading cause of death among children under five years old.
In fact, recent studies suggest that regular hand-washing with soap at critical times can reduce the number of diarrhoea bouts by almost 50 per cent.
It is also true that without water there is no hygiene. Research shows that the less readily available water is, the less likely good hygiene will be practised in households.
Mbali Mahaye – KwaZulu-Natal Department of Water and Sanitation: Communications
