Provision of toilet facilities, treatment of faeces crucial in the fight against cholera
One key and most important factor in the cholera fight is the treatment of faeces, technically termed liquid waste. It is high time Ghana moved from disposing to treating faeces.
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You will notice that solid waste, popularly known as ‘borla’, has not been mentioned here. This is because solid waste does not contribute in any way to outbreak of cholera. ‘Borla’ has enjoyed a lot of attention in Ghana as sanitation. Let us not forget that liquid waste (toilet) is also a crucial component of sanitation and is the answer to the cholera disaster.
We should move from discussing improved sanitation to making it a priority.
A myriad of reasons and challenges account for the poor sanitation that we currently experience in Ghana. These challenges can be holistically addressed if and only if the sanitation sub-sector is seen and treated as a priority sector like energy, power or health.
The Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate (EHSD) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has outlined and developed all the needed strategies and policies to tackle the sanitation challenge. What is lacking is the resources to implement and tackle the menace.
Ghana ranked 2nd in cholera
I am quite certain that ardent readers of the Daily Graphic would recall the article which was titled: “Ghana is ranked as the 7th Dirtiest country.” This was attributed mainly to the fact that 23 per cent of Ghanaians defaecated in drains, open spaces and the sea. Some sanitation experts in Ghana believe that this percentage could be higher but it is yet to be proven.
More shocking is the fact that about 92 per cent of faeces produced in the Greater Accra Region is flushed down the sewerage network or conveyed by cesspit emptiers from septic tanks and are disposed of - untreated - into the sea.
It is, therefore, not surprising that cholera, a disease caused by ingesting faeces, has become endemic in Ghana. As a layman, the simple cause of cholera is that there is toilet almost everywhere. Let me hint that this disease attacked London in 1866. The cause was disposal of faeces into the Thames River.
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While we were preventing and devoting more than GH¢6 million to Ebola, cholera came, affected about 29,000 people and killed 243 people. The 2014 cholera epidemic affected the highest number of persons in the past 30 years within a short period of six months with all the 10 regions experiencing an outbreak, especially the Greater Accra, Central, Eastern and Brong Ahafo regions.
As usual the Ministry of Health and/or the Ghana Health Service felt the heat the most and enjoyed support to purchase curative medicines, build cholera treatment and isolation centres and purchase chlorine tablets for disinfection.
Kudos to all our development partners and the Government of Ghana for supporting the cholera ‘firefighting’ exercise in 2014 and early 2015. However, the fight against cholera goes beyond activation of Disaster Management Committees, short-lived meetings, sensitisation activities and distribution of chlorine tablets.
• The writer is a sanitary engineer at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD)