Millions die due to lack of toilets and good sanitation

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This article at http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080320/ts ... ealthwater states that 2 million people die unnecessarily due to a lack of toilets and good sanitation. I quoted parts of the article below.

"GENEVA (AFP) - Every day, worldwide, people are falling sick and dying for no better reason than the lack of a good clean toilet, two UN aid agencies said Thursday"

"About two in every five people have no access to a proper toilet, said the World Health Organisation and the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF), warning that the lack of sanitation is putting 2.6 billion people at risk of disease."

"In the world today, there are 15 million deaths caused by infectious diseases," said David Heyman, WHO's assistant director general for health security and environment...If we had good sanitation today, and good water supplies, we could decrease that immediately by two million"

"In a survey by the British Medical Journal of 11,000 health professionals, sanitation was cited as the most important medical advancement since 1840, ahead of vaccines and anaesthesia."

Last edited by zendell on 22 Mar 2008, 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

This isn't funny, and it shows how lucky we are. Now if you live in a major city in a developing country, Calcutta comes to mind, this could create massive cataclysmic pandemics.

Sani-flush topic

You cannot have good sanitary plumbing and toilets without a good water supply, and we in North America have this. Yes, we should not take this for granted. Until developing countries can have access to this sort of technology and basic water resources then there will be more disease epidemics.

I really hate to sound mean, but most people in the 3rd world squat in rice paddies or where ever they have to go, nothing is going to change that, sure we are very lucky in the 1st world, having clean water, and proper sanitation, but there are still place in north america that don't have these conveniences. To be very blunt, s**t Happens

This is one of my pet 'causes'. The one thing I want to do when I've made my money is go to third world countries and help build water pumps and get clean water to places where they don't have it. People are dying for simple lack of clean water to drink and wash with, and without water you can't have decent hygiene (let alone toilets, even simple squat drains that can be rinsed safely!)... One day I will do it.

How about thinking that at some point, the people of third world countries do something themselves rather than s****ing in their only water supply and expecting us to assist them again? No nation is withholding this technology from them!

There are such things as waterless toilets, they are called Humus Toilets, which turn excrement to ash, they can be solar powered, but why bother, we have big enough problems at home, why should anyone waste their time going to the 3rd world to help people who are to lazy or stupid to build proper sanitation, its just common sense not to take a dump in your drinking water, you can only help them so much, sure is great to want to help, but you can't fix the whole world, for people who can not help themselves.

What makes you think people would 'dump in their drinking water'?? Or that they're 'lazy or stupid'? And why would they have humus when they've got DU all through their soil and the majority is unfarmable or arid, or that they have money for electricity, let alone the means to create solar power panels, when they can barely afford to eat once a week?

Have you ever BEEN to any of these countries and met these people? Let's try, "they can't be helped when they're indebted to the biggest bully the world has seen in a long, long time...". Try knowing about something before you go slagging off half the world. We aren't all fortunate enough to have been born in the right place; how about a little sympathy for those who can't help their situation and are doing the best they can with what they have? Have you so much as looked at any of these places in photos? Talked to anyone from them, even online? Bought a fair-trade item of clothing or food?

The let-them-eat-tofu crowd strikes again: now Third World poor are expected to buy (expensive) solar panels (given that many of them are illiterate, how many have even heard of solar panels?). Just because the poor in YOUR country often don't want to work or help themselves because they can get government handouts instead doesn't mean Third World poor have the same choices.
People currently born in countries like the US didn't get themselves out of the gutter; they were just born into opportunities. Many people in the Third World were born into desperate circumstances. It's a bit rich for those born into opportunities to lecture everyone else.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to help, but in this case its a complete waste of time, Africa or anywhere else in the 3rd world, its to unstable, and having a bunch of silly deluded do gooders getting in harms way is not going to help, if you really want to help someone try helping someone who on the street in your own city, or maybe going to an Indian reserve and helping someone there. On the hummis toilet do some research, the by product can be used as fertilizer, and I said solar powered as in thermal solar powered which uses water pipes heated by the sun, hummis toilets are used in some 3rd world country's. If you want to go over to one of these countries, go right ahead, don't you get holier then thou because I think and know for a fact that its a complete waste of time, why don't you go hug a tree, eat your organic carrot, and be all smug driving your hybrid car, IF you really want to help how about trying in your own backyard, try volunteering in your neighborhood, instead of having your head in the clouds, thinking getting shot at or robbed then shot, catching malaria or some other 3rd world disease, is helping them, your completely wrong. As I stated "You Can't Help People Who Can Not Help Themselves!"

You're an ignorant idiot if you think everywhere in the Third World is unstable. The do-gooders are mostly fools, but you're just another spoiled brat that thinks everybody is born into the same things as people are in Canada. Yes, the peoples of the Third World chose to be born in the wrong country, while you made the right choice by being born in a place like Canada.
Surely the 'you-can't-help-people-that-won't-help-themselves' argument is far more applicable to First World poor (who get benefits unheard-of in the Third World and have vastly better job opportunities than people in the Third World do)? Surely in a place like Canada where there is decent free health care and education and a welfare state the poor are far more responsible for their plight than in the Third World?

You can only say so much to a complete FcukTard, I really don't mind what you call me, I just look at where its coming from, you know nothing of Canada, We pay for healthcare here, its not free, so look it up, by the way my tax dollers go's to help people in africa, and Cana da also pays its UN due's which for your information the US has yet to pay, so go screw yourself a**hole, your the bigest ignorant idiot around

Difference:

People on the streets here shouldn't actually be on the streets - there are homeless shelters, plenty of charities to help them, the dole, work and income support and rehabilitation to get people off the streets and into employment, etc etc. People in these other countries don't have that choice, and believe me, they WANT to be helped and they DO work hard. Can you even imagine walking 6 hours a day just to get clean water from a well, and then carrying the huge jars of it back to your family, thus missing out on schooling and on education and everything else? Being orphaned at 7 and having to take care of your siblings as a parent because everyone around you is dying? Take a reality check - these people need help, and it will NOT come from the UN or from charity handouts or from aid money from other governments. You want to help, you have to get out there with grass-roots organisations and do it yourself. Work with them, not 'for' them.

For info, I do work with Amnesty International. I collect for a local women's refuge, I help with Oxfam on occasion, and I work with Greenpeace and volunteer in a Trade-Aid shop. Oops, must fly, have trees to hug and organic carrots to buy, but unfortunately I don't even own a car so there goes your hybrid theory...