Lacking safe water, children face ongoing risks

Diarrhea prominently impacts developing regions and hits young children swiftly. The “vicious cycle,” as identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO), of ongoing exposure to unsafe water which leads to diarrhea can render young children seriously ill and in severe cases lead to death.

“Water is life, but the challenge in developing regions is the limited access to safe drinking water so people drink whatever water is available which is mostly contaminated water,” Bismarck Swangin, communication Officer in UNICEF Southern Sudan, told MediaGlobal. “The resulting water related diseases are on a large scale since the greatest majority drink contaminated water.”

Striking on a moment's notice, diarrhea is a symptom of a gastrointestinal infection that is caused by bacterial, viral, or parasitic organisms found in polluted water. In conjunction with malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions, their ability to fight off infections is already compromised. Diarrhea can result in extreme dehydration and cause death. According to WHO, nearly two million children die from it annually because of lack of treatment.

Peter Van Maanen, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme Officer at UNICEF, explained to MediaGlobal that because children consume more water in shorter periods of time because of their higher metabolic rates, “young children are particularly vulnerable to life-threatening dehydration because water constitutes a greater proportion of young children and infants' body weight.” It is this population that remains the most susceptible target.

“Environmental factors, such as the lack of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities as well as poor hygiene, play an important role in increasing children's exposure to the pathogens that cause diarrhea,” said Van Maanen. “Undernourished children, particularly those not exclusively breastfed or with inadequate zinc or vitamin A intake, are at higher risk of suffering diarrhea,” he added.

In Southern Sudan, where resources remain scarce and children are unaware of the dangers of contaminated water, the problem continues to grow with time. Areas of clean, safe drinking water are isolated and therefore can be hard to access, Swangin explained. “Women and girls spend long hours to fetch water which demoralizes them…[from] taking the long walk to the safe drinking water source and instead [they will] turn to the nearby pool where animals and birds all drink from [which are] hence contaminated,” he said.

UNICEF has undertaken several initiatives specifically in Southern Sudan to ensure more awareness for children. Swangin said that UNICEF is engaging children through their school clubs to highlight the dangers associated with unsanitary conditions. He added “this is being matched with a ‘water for school' and a ‘water for health centres' program which ensures that every school has water and sanitation facilities, the same for health centres and for the communities.”

But in the midst of this, Swangin emphasized the need for an intensification of “community awareness” and did not feel optimistic that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing half the world's proportion without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation could be met by 2015. Swangin cited factors such as “poor infrastructure to support community education [in] creat[ing] awareness about water-borne diseases” and the difficulty in keeping “community social workers on [a] voluntary basis.”

Article published courtesy of MediaGlobal