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768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

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  • 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

    Everyone interested in public health should follow the link to read this in full - http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?288143


    The Throneless...
    The faecal matter hits the rotary blades, politically?but we?re still staring at a sanitation disaster
    UTTAM SENGUPTA

    ?Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate mostly besides the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover.?
    ?V.S. Naipaul
    An Area of Darkness, 1964

    Not to put too fine a point on it, India?s no. 1 problem is no. 2. And for an all-too-brief while last week, the squatting figures dotting the landscape??eternal and emblematic as Rodin?s thinker? in the Nobel laureate?s immortal words?looked set to emerge out of the bushes and shadows in an election season, as the bjp?s Narendra Modi, whose advertised motto is ?India First?, mom*entarily gave flight to his vision of ?Toilet First?.

    ?My image does not permit me to say so, but my real thought is, ?Pehle shauchalaya, phir devalaya (Toilets first, temples later)?,? Modi said, as he sought to buff up his image as more than just a Hindutva leader. ?It?s a sad situation that our mothers and sisters have to defecate in the open. Villages have hundreds of thousands of temples but no washrooms. This is bad. Gandhiji gave so much importance to this issue.?

    Holy [poop]! Had wisdom finally dawned on those sitting on the throne (and those aspiring), 50 years after Naipaul?s whiplash? Union minister Jairam Ramesh had only six months ago said more or less the same thing. That 64 per cent of Indians still do it in the open, a global record. That this is the main cause of India?s malnutrition. And that?hold on to the seat of your pants?this costs the nation $54 billion (Rs 3,24,000 crore) every year in premature deaths and treatment of the sick, wasted time and productivity, and lost tourism revenues.

    ?There is no use blasting Agni missiles if the sanitation problem is not solved,? Jairam, who confesses he spends most of his waking hours thinking about toilets, said. ?It?s more important than the launch of Agni missiles. If there are no toilets, then Agni is of no use. The price of just one fighter aircraft is enough to free one thousand villages from open defecation.?
    ...
    Toilet Stats

    64% of Indians defecate in the open
    60% of all open defecations in the world are in India

    6.4% of the GDP lost in health costs, productivity losses and reduced tourism revenues
    0.02% of India?s GDP accounts for the budgetary allocation for sanitation
    8.71 crore (87.1 million) toilets claimed to have been delivered by Total Sanitation Campaign in the last 10 years
    5.16 crore (51.6 million) toilets are all that was found to be in existence by the household census
    45,000 crore rupees (450 billion) spent on rural sanitation during the last five years
    1.08 lakh crore (1.08 trillion) rupees to be spent in the next five years till 2017
    Outlook Group: Your ultimate source for top headlines and breaking news from India and world, politics, latest updates on sports and entertainment events, business news, stories on art and culture, elections, literature, society, in-depth news content and Outlook Magazine articles, photo stories and picture galleries, video news and mental health stories.
    Twitter: @RonanKelly13
    The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

  • #2
    Re: 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

    India's missing toilets

    Author(s): Ravi Bajpai @bajpairavi
    Date:Nov 19, 2013
    Government unable to determine exactly how many households don't have toilets

    More than half of rural households across India could be without toilets, according to the 2011 Census, but the government refuses to acknowledge the scale of the problem.

    The Drinking Water and Sanitation ministry claims 53.09 per cent of the country's rural households were covered by the toilet drive by December 2010, according to a document titled 'In Deep ****' prepared by the Right to Sanitation Campaign in India.

    But the 2011 Census reported the total number of rural households across the country that don't have a toilet was in fact 22.03 per cent less than the number released by the sanitation ministry, according to the document.
    ...
    Government unable to determine exactly how many households don't have toilets
    Twitter: @RonanKelly13
    The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

      One toilet every second: Modi government?s 100 day target

      Author(s): Jitendra @jitendrachoube1
      Date:Jul 7, 2014
      Union ministry issues orders to all states to meet target of constructing 5.2 million toilets by end of August

      The Ministry of Drinking water and Sanitation on Friday finalised its 100-day plan, under which it has decided to construct one toilet every second by the end of August this year.

      Sarswati Prasad, joint secretary for sanitation, issued an order to each state, giving them their respective targets for the next two months.

      The ministry has set the target of constructing 5.2 million toilets by August 31. The total target of 2014-15 is 12.5 million toilets
      ...
      Union ministry issues orders to all states to meet target of constructing 5.2 million toilets by end of August
      Twitter: @RonanKelly13
      The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

        Press Information Bureau
        Government of India
        Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
        28-July-2014 15:50 IST
        ?Mass awareness required on simple steps to control diarrhoea?
        Dr Harsh Vardhan calls for CSR funds to back plan to build toilets

        Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister, today appealed to India?s corporate sector to contribute to a nationwide project to build toilets. An endeavour on such an extensive scale has not been attempted by the government before and its success hinges much on the consensus that open defecation is a national curse which should end, the Health Minister said.

        ?Our Prime Minister has pledged to stop the practice,? the Minister said while inaugurating the Ministry?s first ever ?Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight (IDCF)?. The injection of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds would help make his dream of a toilet for every Indian a reality, Dr Harsh Vardhan said.

        The Health Minister said that the government has placed unprecedented emphasis on out of the box solutions to long ?standing problems. ?So much has been done for so many years. What we now need are ideas which defy the trodden path and call for courageous action,? the Minister said.

        The fact that India?s health administrators failed to spread mass awareness on diarrhoea management speaks volumes of the inefficiency of previous programmes, he said. It is therefore time to think up novel communication vehicles. Diarrhoea kills more than 1.36 million children annually, the third biggest cause of child mortality, he noted.

        The Minister said, ?We don?t have forever to bring down the death rate. By September 2015 we have to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. I have therefore called for large scaling pooling of synergies to challenge the scourge of child deaths.?

        Outlining the rationale of IDCF, the Minister said it would mobilise health personnel at both central and state levels and from the volunteer sector to give momentum to diarrhoea control measures. It is essentially a set of activities which include enhancing advocacy, step up awareness generation, establish more ORS-Zinc corners, enthuse ASHA volunteers to reach Oral Rehydration Solution packets to families with children as well as detect children in need of treatment, the Health Minister stated.

        The Minister appealed to mothers not to stop breast feeding children under six months with diarrhoea symptoms. This is covered under IDCF?s programme of spreading knowledge of best practices of infant and child feeding.

        Elaborating on the programme through a presentation, Dr Mathuram Santosham of John Hopkins University, Maryland, USA and Dr Rakesh Kumar, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry, said that during the fortnight intensified community awareness campaigns on hygiene and age-appropriate childhood feeding practices and promotion of ORS and Zinc Therapy will be conducted at the state, district and village levels.

        Mr Louis-Georges Arsenault, UNICEF?s India Representative, felicitated the Ministry for organising IDCF saying it would re-energise India?s efforts to prevent child deaths in the country by increasing access to life-saving interventions.

        Dr Nata Menabde, World Health Organisation?s chief in India, said, ?Many children in the developing world cannot access urgent medical care for severe illnesses for want of hygiene, sanitation, safe drinking water and exclusive breast feeding. These should be the critical components of diarrhoea control.?

        Mr Lov Verma, Union Health Secretary, said that there had been a decline in infant and child mortality rates in recent years owing to increased access to immunisation and child health services.

        ****


        MV
        Twitter: @RonanKelly13
        The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

          I would also recommend this 2009 article by Jason Gale for which he won an "Overseas press club of America" award.

          India Failing to Control Open Defecation Blunts Nation’s Growth

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

            Toilets turn godowns

            OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
            New Delhi, Sept. 15: Fewer than 3 per cent of the toilets built under the government?s sanitation scheme are in use and the rest have been converted into godowns, some even into temples, minister Nitin Gadkari said today.

            ?Out of every 3.5 lakh (350,000) toilets built, (only) 10,000 are used. The rest are used as godowns. Some toilets have been converted into temples. Lack of water is the main problem,? Gadkari told a news conference.

            Gadkari?s ministry of sanitation and drinking water aims to make India free of open defecation by 2019. The ministry will announce the roadmap on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi whose 150th year of birth will be marked in 2019.

            The minister stressed the need for better technology, mainly water supply, to ensure proper use of the toilets.
            ...
            Twitter: @RonanKelly13
            The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

              India launches sanitation revolution

              8 October 2014 | By Rod Sweet

              While recent news from India has been about flashy infrastructure plans, such as 100 ?smart cities? and Chinese or Japanese funded high speed rail, last week the focus was on building a much humbler type of amenity ? toilets.

              On Thursday (2 October) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wielded a broom in New Delhi to launch a major campaign to clean up the world?s largest democracy, and a key plank of the effort, scheduled to last until 2019, is the construction of hundreds of millions of lavatories.

              It is a serious issue for India. In a 2014 update on global sanitation, the United Nations reported that nearly half the country ? 597 million people ? currently defecate out in the open, with major implications for public health. Water.org says that 1,600 Indians die every day from diarrhoea alone, a death toll roughly equivalent to eight Boeing 747s crashing daily.

              The prevalence of preventable disease has an economic impact as well. A 2006 World Bank report estimated that India was losing 6.4% of GDP annually because of poor access to sanitation.
              ...
              Twitter: @RonanKelly13
              The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

                Widely used sanitation programmes do not necessarily improve health, finds Lancet study - See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/ind....ro9KqfRU.dpuf

                Written by Anuradha Mascarenhas | Pune | Posted: October 10, 2014 12:53 pm
                ...
                The intervention increased the average proportion of households in a village with a latrine from 9% to 63%, compared an increase of 8% to 12% in control villages. However, the researchers found no evidence that the intervention protected against diarrhoea in children younger than 5 years: 7-day prevalence of reported diarrhoea was 8.8% in the intervention group (data from 1919 children) and 9.1% in the control group (1916 children). What is more, the intervention did not reduce the prevalence of parasitic worms that are transmitted via soil and can cause reduced physical growth and impaired cognitive function in children. There was also no impact on child weight or height?measures of nutritional status.

                ?The programme is effective in building latrines, but not all households participate?, explains lead author Professor Thomas Clasen from Emory University, Atlanta, USA and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK. ?Moreover, many householders do not always use the latrines. This, combined with continued exposure from poor hygiene, contaminated water, and unsafe disposal of child faeces, may explain the lack of a health impact.?
                ...
                Twitter: @RonanKelly13
                The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: 768 million Indians defecate in the open - Huge public health issue

                  The Lancet Global Health, Early Online Publication, 10 October 2014
                  doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(14)70307-9Cite or Link Using DOI

                  Copyright ? 2014 Clasen et al. Open Access article distributed under the terms of CC BY-NC-ND Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

                  Effectiveness of a rural sanitation programme on diarrhoea, soil-transmitted helminth infection, and child malnutrition in Odisha, India: a cluster-randomised trial

                  Prof Thomas Clasen PhD a b Corresponding AuthorEmail Address, Sophie Boisson PhD b, Parimita Routray PhD b, Belen Torondel PhD b, Melissa Bell MSc b, Oliver Cumming PhD b, Jeroen Ensink PhD b, Matthew Freeman PhD a, Marion Jenkins PhD c, Mitsunori Odagiri MSc c, Subhajyoti Ray PhD d, Antara Sinha MSc b, Mrutyunjay Suar PhD e, Wolf-Peter Schmidt PhD b
                  Summary

                  Background
                  A third of the 2?5 billion people worldwide without access to improved sanitation live in India, as do two-thirds of the 1?1 billion practising open defecation and a quarter of the 1?5 million who die annually from diarrhoeal diseases. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of a rural sanitation intervention, within the context of the Government of India's Total Sanitation Campaign, to prevent diarrhoea, soil-transmitted helminth infection, and child malnutrition.

                  Methods
                  We did a cluster-randomised controlled trial between May 20, 2010, and Dec 22, 2013, in 100 rural villages in Odisha, India. Households within villages were eligible if they had a child younger than 4 years or a pregnant woman. Villages were randomly assigned (1:1), with a computer-generated sequence, to undergo latrine promotion and construction or to receive no intervention (control). Randomisation was stratified by administrative block to ensure an equal number of intervention and control villages in each block. Masking of participants was not possible because of the nature of the intervention. However, households were not told explicitly that the purpose of enrolment was to study the effect of a trial intervention, and the surveillance team was different from the intervention team. The primary endpoint was 7-day prevalence of reported diarrhoea in children younger than 5 years. We did intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01214785.

                  Findings
                  We randomly assigned 50 villages to the intervention group and 50 villages to the control group. There were 4586 households (24 969 individuals) in intervention villages and 4894 households (25 982 individuals) in control villages. The intervention increased mean village-level latrine coverage from 9% of households to 63%, compared with an increase from 8% to 12% in control villages. Health surveillance data were obtained from 1437 households with children younger than 5 years in the intervention group (1919 children younger than 5 years), and from 1465 households (1916 children younger than 5 years) in the control group. 7-day prevalence of reported diarrhoea in children younger than 5 years was 8?8% in the intervention group and 9?1% in the control group (period prevalence ratio 0?97, 95% CI 0?83?1?12). 162 participants died in the intervention group (11 children younger than 5 years) and 151 died in the control group (13 children younger than 5 years).

                  Interpretation
                  Increased latrine coverage is generally believed to be effective for reducing exposure to faecal pathogens and preventing disease; however, our results show that this outcome cannot be assumed. As efforts to improve sanitation are being undertaken worldwide, approaches should not only meet international coverage targets, but should also be implemented in a way that achieves uptake, reduces exposure, and delivers genuine health gains.

                  Funding
                  Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), and Department for International Development-backed SHARE Research Consortium at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

                  full paper at; http://www.thelancet.com/journals/la...307-9/fulltext
                  Twitter: @RonanKelly13
                  The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    25% of villages declared open defecation free still don?t have toilets: Report

                    Dipak K Dash | TNN | Jun 19, 2017, 03.30 AM IST

                    NEW DELHI: In one-fourth of nearly two lakh villages, which have been declared open defecation free (ODF), all houses don't have toilets, according to the integrated data that the Centre maintains.
                    ...
                    In a recent communication to states, the sanitation ministry said 33% of the total 605,828 villages have been declared as ODF.

                    "Out of the 200,959 villages, 52,593 villages do not have 100% coverage reflecting on the IMIS (Integrated Management Information System)... you are requested to instruct district officials to ensure entries of 100% coverage in ODF villages in IMIS," the ministry's letter said.
                    ...
                    India News: In one-fourth of nearly two lakh villages, which have been declared open defecation free, all houses don’t have toilets, according to the integrated d
                    Twitter: @RonanKelly13
                    The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      India?s ?successful? toilet campaign may be missing its mark
                      BY JOANNE LU ON 25 MAY 2017 0

                      India?s campaign to end open defecation has been widely celebrated by officials as an innovative and aggressive success. Even Bill Gates recently declared that the country is ?winning its war on human waste? with a 360-degree video. But independent surveys and investigations have come to a vastly different conclusion ? that victory, unfortunately, is not in sight.

                      Three years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the country?s most aggressive sanitation drive ever, called ?Swachh Bharat? or the Clean India Mission. Among its targets is to make the entire country open-defecation free by Oct. 2, 2019 ? initially, with the construction of 12 million toilets, but now, according to Gates, 75 million toilets.

                      According to the World Health Organization (WHO), almost half of India?s population ? 626 million people ? defecate in open fields, water sources, forests or other open spaces. That is more than double the number of people who practice open defecation in the next 18 countries combined.
                      ...
                      Twitter: @RonanKelly13
                      The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Only 51.6% of India's open defecation free villages are verified by govt
                        The World Bank also rated the implementation of the programme 'moderately unsatisfactory'
                        Swagata Yadavar | IndiaSpend
                        August 6, 2017 Last Updated at 16:17 IST


                        Out of 204,245 villages that self-declared to be open-defecation free (ODF), only 105,456 villages or 51.6% have been verified by state governments, according to this reply to the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) by Narendra Singh Tomar, minister for drinking water and sanitation, on August 3, 2017.

                        An independent verification agency has been appointed to conduct the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey to measure the progress made by states.
                        ...

                        Twitter: @RonanKelly13
                        The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          India even behind Somalia when it comes to safely managing sanitation services
                          DTE Staff Friday 24 November 2017
                          The JMP report also shows significant inequalities in basic drinking water and sanitation services within regions
                          ...
                          In India, for example, 93 per cent of latrines or septic tanks have never been emptied. Hence, it cannot be said that the excreta is safely managed. India is well behind countries such as Senegal, Bangladesh, Somalia and Ecuador when it comes to having safely managed sanitation services.
                          ...
                          Twitter: @RonanKelly13
                          The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

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                          • #14
                            Click image for larger version

Name:	toilets.png
Views:	56
Size:	1.51 MB
ID:	794174
                            Twitter: @RonanKelly13
                            The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

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