LIBERIA: Less cholera with better hygiene
MONROVIA, 25 September 2007 (IRIN) - Faced with unsafe water and poor sanitation systems, aid groups in Liberia are encouraging people to wash their hands, put bleach in drinking water and find safe ways of disposing of human waste.
"We're trying to prevent outbreaks of waterborne diseases before they happen... It's fairly clear that the Ministry of Health does not have the transport and logistical facilities to improve the country's provision for water sanitation," Kabuka Banba, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) project officer in Liberia, told IRIN.
Less than 25 percent of Monrovia's 1.5 million people have access to safe drinking water, according to UNICEF. "So the thrust of [our] intervention is to build capacity through training and education," Banba said.
Education in New Kru Town, a neighbourhood in the capital Monrovia, would seem to be paying off. Two rainy seasons ago there were nearly 300 cases of cholera out of a population of 40,000; this year fewer than 20 cases have been reported.
Water and sanitation experts say when a community undergoes an epidemic, as New Kru did, people there are naturally more receptive to prevention messages.
Liberian NGO Foundation for All Ages (FALL) says it has carried out a hygiene scheme that taught residents about the importance of using toilet facilities, washing their hands afterwards and collecting fresh well-water every day rather than letting water sit in buckets for long periods.
"People have been taught some basic hygiene skills they didn't know before," community leader Augustus Seongbae II told IRIN. "After the training the number of running stomach cases and cholera cases has sharply reduced."
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