Chronic diseases could be significantly reduced if people simply kept
themselves properly hydrated with clean water, the minister of health said
yesterday in Siem Reap.
“Clean water plays an important
role in almost every aspect of our lives. Healthy drinking water is vital to
good health and nutrition,” Mam Bunheng said during the official launch of the
Biotech Water Filter Station in Puok district’s Prey Chrouk commune. According
to Bunheng, just making clean water available to communities could have a
tremendous impact on the lives of Cambodia’s mothers and children.
“If we have good water and
sanitation, we can reduce malnutrition among children younger than five years
of age by more than 50 per cent,” he said.
Flynn Fuller, USAID mission
director, said these new stations demonstrate the joint efforts of the United
States government, through USAID, the Latter-day Saint charities and the
Cambodian government to improve access to safe water for society’s most vulnerable,
especially children and women.
“Cambodia has made tremendous
progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, four and five over the past
five years. These goals aim to reduce infant and child mortality rates and the
numbers of women who die giving birth,” he said.
The government increased the
number of midwives stations across the country. It also provided incentives for
every midwife assisted live birth at a health facility, Fuller said. “Health
equity funds have been strengthened and increased; these funds cover health
care costs for poor people and increase equitable access to health care for
those who cannot effort it,” Fuller said.
According to Fuller, despite
these achievements, maternal and child health is still a major concern for all
of us. “The number of mothers and children under five years who die in Cambodia
remains among the highest in the region,” he said.
According to Philippa Morgan,
strategic partnership manager of the NGO Water for Cambodia, a lot of
organisations in Cambodia are providing different kinds of water filters. Water
for Cambodia builds water sand filters called bio sand filters where sand traps
the bacteria. After the filtering process, “the water is drinkable according to
WHO standards”, Morgan says.
Although heavily subsidised, one
filter still costs US$7 to ensure it is properly looked after. If the villagers
invest in something themselves, they usually take care of it, Morgan said. As
an NGO, their main goal is to provide clean water to the villages, making them
less sick and enabling them to work more often, which also fosters economic
development in the rural areas, she said.
Chan Theary, director of the
Reproductive And Child Health Alliance (RACHA), said a RACHA report revealed
that in the first six months of 2012, 34 of 100 children younger than five
years old who received medical treatments in Khjas health centre suffered
diarrhea.
In the past three years RACHA has
built water stations and five health centres.
Thik Kaliyann and Anne
Renzenbrink
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