By Meddy Mulisa in Bukoba
KAGERA Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS), Prof Faustin Kamuzora, has appealed to residents to ensure they use toilets and hand washing facilities to improve sanitation and prevent controllable
diseases.He noted that the government aimed at ensuring that most of the preventable diseases were eradicated by 2022.
"We all need to play our part, including constructing and using toilets. As a nation, we need to invest our resources in improving sanitation and hygiene to attain our national and global goals. The government targets to ensure every household and public institution has a toilet by 2022," he said.
About 500 people die every year in Tanzania due to diseases which can be prevented. As of November last year, 27,554 people were reported to have diarrhoea and 432 of them died.
The National Sample Census of Agriculture conducted in 2002/03 revealed that 18,926 households in Kagera Region (equivalent to five per cent) had no toilet facilities.
The distribution of the households without toilets indicated that 45 per cent of them were in Karagwe District, Biharamulo (29 per cent), Muleba (11 per cent), Bukoba Rural (9 nine per cent) and Ngara (6 per cent).
According to the survey, 315,464 households, implying 90 per cent of all rural households, use traditional pit latrines, while 6,795 households (2 per cent) use improved pit latrines and 11,963 households (3 per cent) use flush toilets.
The remaining 129 households (0.04 per cent) use other types of toilet facilities.
More people, especially children aged five years and below, die every day in thousands as a result of contracting preventable diseases. Poor sanitation causes dysentery and typhoid which are surefooted killers.
Estimates show that about 30,000 people contract diarrhoea every year that translates into an equivalent of 85 people daily.
Therefore, community environmental management strategies are needed to control preventable diseases contracted through poor sanitation.
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