A partnership for change in Water and Sanitation Fields
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- Daily Motion
A partnership for change in Water and Sanitation Fields
A partnership for change http://werichanel.wordpress.com/emergency-sanitation-for-refugees/ Diarrhoeal disease is one of the major causes of illness and death among refugees. In this insert, Dialogue on Diarrhoea assesses the special needs of communities in refugee camps; provides practical guidelines for protecting water sources, improving sanitation and ensuring good hygiene to prevent outbreaks of disease; and describes measures to control cholera. There are more than 30 million refugees or displaced people in the world. Death rates in refugees and those displaced by natural disasters are often extremely high. especially in the early phase of displacement. In Ethiopia in 1985 and in the Sudan in 1988, mortality rates in camps for displaced people were 60 times greater than in non-refugee communities. particularly among children. In Bangladesh, a diarrhoea epidemic with 12,000 acute cases quickly developed amongst people who had been made homeless by the cyclone ‘Urirchar’ (1). The danger of diarrhoea in refugee camps - a Kurdish child drinks dirty water from a makeshift container. People who remain in areas affected by war or other disasters face problems similar to those forced to leave their homes: there is no sanitation infrastructure, and water supplies are often contaminated. In these situations immediate steps must be taken to protect people from the spread of disease, including diarrhoea. Lives can be saved by effective treatment of diarrhoea and dehydration. Adequate supplies of clean water and improvised sanitation facilities can help to improve the health status of the community, and prevent diarrhoea.
Daily Motion | April 2, 2009
