A coalition of civil society organizations in Bauchi State has disclosed that about 3,900,000 citizens of the state have no access to combined water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services.
Chairman of the coalition, Chindo Sodangi made this known while addressing newsmen on the occasion of Global Hand washing Day, 2020 on Thursday at the Bauchi State secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists.
Chindo said lack of WASH services has impacted negatively on health and education of the people of Bauchi state.
Sodangi said the coalition supported by WaterAid in a survey had documented that the problem has the potential to spread contagious diseases such as cholera and COVID-19.
He said, clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene, together, form the foundation that underpins almost all of the sustainable development goals.
“Despite the fact that a great percentage of households access water wells and water vendors which are vulnerable to contamination only 15 percent households treat their water before drinking while 84.7 percent do not carry out any form of treatment”, the Chairman noted.
Sodangi who maintained that Cholera remains a global threat to public health said it is an indicator of inequality and lack of social development.
Adding that, “the disease is endemic across many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with large outbreaks occurring regularly in areas characterised by poverty, marginalization and poor access to WASH”.
Sodangi pointed out that Nigeria is accounting for a large proportion of the cholera burden in the sub-Saharan region.
“The disease is prevalent and seasonal, occurring mostly during the rainy season and more often in areas that lack clean water and sanitation. The disease is primarily linked to insufficient access to safe, clean water supplies, crowded living conditions and poor hygiene and sanitation”, he noted.
He said 77 percent of households in Bauchi use traditional pit toilets, 13.5 percent use pour flush, 3.4 have none, 3.6 percent have closets while ventilated pit accounts for 0.75 percent.
According to him, about 71.7 percent of the toilets do not have hand washing facilities with soap.
He said that the recurrent outbreaks of cholera in Bauchi is largely attributed to indiscriminate waste disposal, inadequate clean water supply within Bauchi metropolis and its environs as well as poor hygiene practices.
Sodangi said that the provision of safe water and sanitation among other things is critical to controlling the transmission of cholera and other endemic and waterborne diseases.
Others he noted include scaling up clean family campaigns across 20 local government areas of the state, domestication of WASH COVID-19 guidelines, implementation of the revised WASH policy and state WASH action plan.
He added that the state budget should be reviewed to adequately reflect prevention strategies for infectious diseases such as the cholera and COVID 19 diseases by ensuring that allocated funds are released and implemented accordingly to reduce over dependence on donor agencies, among other strategies.
