HYGIENE AND SANITATION (WASH)

Arabella Suarez
BSGE – 1B
National Service Training Program

The things I’ve learned from Prof Rodel Ninofranco:

Around 60% of our body is made up of water and we can only live for three to five days without
taking any fluids. Each person needs to consume 15 liters of water everyday. Water is important
to our body as it helps in flushing waste from the body, regulating body temperature,
transportation of nutrients and is necessary for digestion. Hygiene and sanitation are crucial for
everyone since they aid in the maintenance of health and the extension of life spans. Facts about
WASH; (a) 663 million people do not have access to clean water, (b) 801,000 children under 5
years old die every year from contaminated water, (c) 40 billion hours spent by women walking
to water sources, (d) 40% of the world’s population suffer from water scarcity, (e) 1 child dies
every 21 seconds from water related illness. (f) 2.5 billion people lack access to improved
sanitation, (g) 2.2 billion infections transmitted due to lack of sanitation, (h) 1.5 million children
die each year from lack of sanitation, (i) 70% of people lacking access to sanitation live in rural
areas. According to World Health Organization (WHO), the top 10 most common communicable
diseases in year 2020 are; (1) COVID 19, (2) Enterbacterlaceae, (3) Ebola, (4) Hanta Virus, (5)
Tuberculosis, (6) HIV/AIDS, (7) Rabies, (8) Small fox, (9) Leprosy, (10) Typhoid. Prof
Ninofranco also mentioned how germs spread, germs can be spread from person to person or
from surfaces to people when you: touch your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands;
prepare or eat food and drinks with unwashed hands; touch surfaces or objects that have germs
on them; blow your nose, cough, or sneeze into hands and then touch other prople’s hands or
common objects. There are two modes of disease transmission, it could be direct or indirect.
Under direct mode, it can be through direct contact or droplet spread while in indirect mode, it
can be airborne, vehicle borne, or vector borne (mechanical or biological).