UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon has designated 2008 as the Year of Water Sanitation, a worthy effort which dovetails into public health and climate change issues–and which Central Asian states could use to their benefit.

According to the UN, investing $10 billion a year could halve the proportion of people without basic toilet facilities by 2015.  This grimy state of affairs affects 2.6 billion people worldwide, and not just aesthetically.

Public Health vs. Polio:
In Pakistan and Afghanistan, polio, spread by fecal-oral contact, continues to be a public health problem.  Afghanistan has had an immunization program over the past year at enormous effort; Pakistan needs one desperately.  Dr. Chan at the UN's World Health Organization has stated that the last pockets of polio incidence are also the most expensive and difficult to reach–Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.  Cultural differences, difficulty in understanding the vaccine regime, and security and transportation problems  frequently hinder efforts.  Hardline preachers in the Pakistani tribal areas have forbidden health workers to immunize children, as late as August of this year.

Rotary International, a long-run enemy to polio virus, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are jump-starting the continued effort with a grant to WHO of USD 2 million.

“An estimated 42,000 people die every week from diseases related to low water quality and an absence of adequate sanitation,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement announcing 2008 as the Year of Sanitation.   Water-borne diseases such as botulism, cholera, and typhoid mostly affect children.

Climate change:
Add to the fact that climate change hits poor countries the hardest–and water quality in poor countries is the worst.  What this means is that water sources themselves become exploited in a heightened fashion, because water itself is not taken care of downriver.  The effects of climate change in Central Asia's aquifers and in Xinjiang make it more important than ever to safeguard and safely treat/sanitize the water that is available.  It's a great program for 2008.  I hope Central Asia officials are busy writing their grants for water sanitation projects–Today–at the very latest., for their major rivers and their dead lakes, their sewage infrastructure, and whatever else that they can think of that will bring water quality up for human use–and for human industry–and human health.

Further Reading: Wikipedia on Poliomyelitus, a disease spread by poor sanitation

Photo: BBC