The cost of poor sanitation and hygiene

The UN General Assembly having declared 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation to promote better hygienic practices, the first Global Hand Washing Day was observed enthusiastically in Pakistan on October 15 with a special focus on school children.
It may look like a trivial activity but it is not so considering that it could help prevent the prevalence of diseases like diarrhoea, which in Pakistan is a major cause of mortality among children under five years of age.
Speaking at a special meeting to mark the occasion, the Federal Secretary for Environment also pointed out that principal afflictions produced by poor sanitation and unhygienic conditions include cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A and E, trachoma, intestinal worms, etc. "Eighty percent of all the diseases," he said, "are attributable to unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene."
Aside from causing unnecessary suffering to the people, these conditions cost our economy an estimated Rs 112 billion per day in terms of lost man-hours and health care expenditure. The government has a commitment to fulfil as a signatory to the UN Millennium Development Goals - to be achieved by 2015 - to reduce child mortality.
At present, it is severely strapped for resources. Even otherwise, public health has always been a low priority subject in our annual budgetary allocations. We need well thought-out interventions that can actually save expenditure, allowing it to be used for addressing the gross inadequacies of our existing health services.
Prevention surely is better than cure. Public-private partnerships can go a long way in the promotion of preventive measures that must include sustained awareness campaigns as well as improved sanitation facilities for all. The present campaign has been focussed on hand washing which is a simple but essential exercise for warding off life threatening diseases.
Public- private partnerships are also needed for the provision of better access to water as well as to educate people about inexpensive ways of cleaning drinking water. It goes without saying, however, that the primary responsibility for the provision of basic necessities rests on the governmental shoulders. Despite deepening financial constraints, the government can do a lot that so far it has not been doing effectively enough.
For instance, if the federal and provincial ministries of environment use their existing resources properly, many health hazards caused by unsafe disposal of waste and unchecked pollution can be removed. In any case, no excuse is good enough to deny the people something as crucial to sustenance of a healthy life as clean drinking water.