Toilets Save Eyesight

This article deserves to be above the fold in the New York Times. Very insightful. Summary: if you want to prevent preventable blindness, you need to consider sanitation and safe water. Don't stop the surgeries, don't stop the antibiotics, and perhaps most importantly for the longrun, don't neglect the Facewashing and Environmental Sanitation parts of the SAFE strategy.

Zambia – Toilets save eyesight, new study confirms
November 16, 2009

CALGARY, Nov. 16 /CNW/ – Why in the world is an organization dedicated to the treatment and prevention of blindness spending money on toilets?

“Because believe it or not, toilets and blindness are directly connected,” says Pat Ferguson, President & CEO of Operation Eyesight. “Proper sanitation and clean water are in short supply in the developing world and that contributes to a high rate of unnecessary blindness and other serious health problems.”

A new study conducted by Zambia’s Ministry of Health and supported by Operation Eyesight found that trachoma was 28 per cent more likely to strike in households that do not have proper toilet facilities. The study, which covered five districts in Zambia, found that up to 80 per cent of the households surveyed do not have toilets.

“Trachoma is caused by a bacterium and is easily spread from person to person and by flies which breed on human waste,” says Ferguson. “So it’s no surprise that proper sewage disposal helps to prevent this horrible disease.”

Trachoma is the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. In parts of Zambia and Kenya where Operation Eyesight supports development projects designed to eliminate trachoma, up to 30 per cent of children age one to nine years are infected.

Without treatment, trachoma causes a person’s eyelids to turn inward so that the eyelashes constantly scrape the eyeball. It is extremely painful and can lead to permanent blindness. The World Health Organization estimates more than 80 million people are affected by trachoma and about 8 million suffer the advanced stages of the disease and are visually impaired.

Operation Eyesight’s trachoma projects are designed to both treat and permanently eliminate trachoma. The projects follow the World Health Organization-endorsed SAFE strategy which includes Surgery to treat the late stage of the disease, Antibiotics to eliminate infection, Face washing and hygiene promotion, and Environmental change including water wells and latrines to prevent re-infection.

To be effective, the ambitious projects require construction of thousands of latrines, drilling hundreds of wells, mass distribution of antibiotics and training thousands of citizens in hygiene and well management.

“These projects are large and costly,” says Ferguson, “But the benefits are enormous. In addition to preventing unnecessary blindness, the SAFE strategy dramatically reduces other serious diseases, helps keep children in school and saves women the need to walk many kilometers in search of water, which is usually unfit for human consumption.”

Operation Eyesight is working in close partnership with the governments of Kenya and Zambia and is a member of GET2020, the World Health Organization initiative to eradicate trachoma from the entire world by 2020. For more information about Operation Eyesight’s trachoma projects, visit www.operationeyesight.com.

Operation Eyesight is a Canadian international development organization dedicated to preventing and treating blindness throughout the world for more than 45 years – primarily in South Asia and Africa. We help local medical professionals provide comprehensive, sustainable eye care and community development for the people of the world who can least afford it. Since 1963, Operation Eyesight has restored sight to more than two million people and provided blindness prevention services to nearly 33 million others. For more information, visit www.operationeyesight.com.

Global Blindness – Every five seconds, one person in our world goes blind and a child goes blind every minute. More than 90 per cent of the world’s blind people live in developing countries, where day-to-day life is already challenging and blindness is a direct threat to life. About 80 per cent of this blindness is preventable or treatable.

Source – NewsWire

Happy World Water Day! And Washington DC fundraising opportunity

First of all, Happy World Water Day for 2008! Let me know in the comments what you all did to celebrate. (I was at the DC Environmental Film Festival's Water Day at Carnegie.)

For those of you in DC, please consider attending Living Water International's April 8 fundraiser:

DC Gala 2008

More than 300 people attended Living Water International's inaugural Washington, D.C. gala in March of 2007, and the 2008 gala promises to draw even more. The event will provide an opportunity for attendees to hear the story of the thirsty--the 1.1 billion people in our world who live (or are dying) without clean water.

Do you want to help spread the word about the global water crisis and the work of LWI? You can get involved by volunteering, or by sponsoring a table so you can invite friends, family, and colleagues to join you for the evening. E-mail for further information. Click here to download a table sponsorship form.

Gala Chairman: Julien Patterson

Guest Speaker: Todd Phillips, Founder, The Last Well Movement

Honorary Co-Chairs
The Honorable Tommy Thompson
The Honorable and Mrs. Steve Largent
The Honorable and Mrs. Jim Slattery
The Honorable and Mrs. Tony Hall
The Honorable and Mrs. Don Bonker
The Honorable Marsha Blackburn

Host Committee
Jason Slattery, Chairman
Andrew Briggs, Co-Chairman
Andress Boggs
Spencer Brand
Chris & Callie Call
Julie Christou
Dick & Anne Dingman
Mike Donohue
The Honorable Becky Norton Dunlop
Lucas Edwards
Marly Garcia
John & Vicki Gingrich
Samuel E. Hancock
Bud & Jill Harper
Chuck & Aino Leedom
Frank and Wanda Lewark
Rodney J. MacAlister
The Honorable John B. Mumford
Andy Musser
Paul O'Brien
Jordan Olivero
Erin Pfneisel
Robert Strain
Ollie Thomas
Dan & Lynda Thompson
Mark Winter

Untold Stories

Even in the under-reported water and sanitation sector, we are constantly bombarded by stories and reports about what doesn’t work, what hasn’t worked, how we are failing as a planet to meet the water and sanitation MDGs. So in a belated Happy Thanksgiving post, I offer a couple of stories and snaps that show the progress the sector is making in small but meaningful ways:

There is a child in school in Niger because she doesn’t have diarrhea thanks to an extraordinarily simple bucket half full of clean water and a little sliver of soap that she and her family use to wash their hands every day.

A woman’s hands in Guatemala are no longer calloused because her village recently acquired a borehole with a handpump. The story – more of a human dignity story than a water story - involves her coming up with gratitude to the project leader and insisting that he feel how soft her hands were. (Thanks to Gil Garcetti for the great photo.)

There is a village in Tibet that is 100% free of open defecation because of some bold little kids running around sticking ‘poo flags’ in each pile, with the names of their shamed depositors written on those flags.


There is a woman in Senegal who no longer has to wait until nightfall for cultural reasons to defecate, because her family invested $4 in a household pit latrine. I couldn’t find a picture of ‘less severe constipation’ or ‘fewer liver problems’ to post, but you get the point.

Onward.

Homo sapiens vs. "lower primates"

The Washington Post published a very interesting piece this weekend:

In an Eastern Congo Oasis, Blood Amid the Greenery
In Africa's Oldest National Park, Gorillas Are Being Killed and Their Guardians Are Endangered, Too

Plenty of justifiable disgust with poachers, and I agree with that. But poachers are the symptom of a much more grave problem, the insecurity of the local populations of homo sapiens.

As I commented on the WP site, "At the risk of starting a flame war, let me suggest that we see homo sapiens as part of the solution, not just part of the problem. The better off humans are in that part of the world, the less likely they are to threaten "lower" primates."

One of the most effective ways to enhance basic human security in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa is to see that the locals have sufficient access to safe drinking water and sanitation. As an example, see what Daryl Hannah is doing in Rwanda:

Daryl Hannah Turns It On for World Water Day

The more safe drinking water is available in human villages, the less frequently those humans need to encroach on gorilla habitat. The unfortunate reality is that when homo sapiens encounter other primates, homo sapiens typically win. We should do what we can to avoid those instances, as should the local and national government authorities in Rwanda, Uganda and elsewhere.

The one other thing I would add in this forum is that if human waste in the villages is treated properly (e.g. pit latrines), the more likely that the bodies of water supporting the gorilla habitats will remain at least relatively unspoiled, so it is important to not omit consideration of environmental sanitation as well.

Where to Start in Africa?

William Easterly had an insightful piece "What Bono doesn't say about Africa" in the LA Times on July 6 which included:

...the typical African is a long way from being a starving, AIDS-stricken refugee at the mercy of child soldiers. The reality is that many more Africans need latrines than need Western peacekeepers — but that doesn't play so well on TV.

Couldn't agree more. The opportunities for education, health, poverty alleviation and real economic development which accrue to an individual who has a place to go to the bathroom are worth contemplating. Also worth contemplating, considering the overall pessimism regarding the potential of sub-Saharan Africa to reach the Millennium Development Goals, is the contribution that the provision of safe drinking water and improved sanitation (viz. latrines) makes to each of the other Millennium Development Goals. Much research exists to quantify the positive impact that safe drinking water and improved sanitation have on the MDGs on maternal and child health, education, poverty alleviation, gender equality and environmental sustainability. Some of the most clear findings on this are here.