Chikhwawa households embrace pit latrines

Chikhwawa District Environmental Health Officer (Deho) Mavuto Thomas said about 90 percent of households in the district have pit latrines, an achievement he says will help reduce outbreaks of waterborne diseases like diarrhea and cholera.

Thomas attributed the achievement to support from Water for People which is helping people in the district to have access to clean water through drilling of boreholes and Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) campaign, as well as by-laws on promotion of sanitation by chiefs.

He was speaking on Friday at Chithumba Community Day Secondary School (CDSS) in the area of Traditional Authority (T/A) Chapananda in Chikhwawa during the commemoration of World Toilet Day.

“In T/A Chapananga alone, a few years ago the health centre used to get 450 cases related to sanitation every month, but this has gone down to just 150 cases. In fact, this area has had no cases of cholera since 2013,” said Thomas.

In T/A Chapananga’s area which has 42 villages, 39 of these have achieved the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status, a situation that the traditional leader attributed to by-laws.

“Our by-laws are two-fold: If a family has no pit latrine, they are denied access to any medical help from the health centre here, but they also do not benefit from any relief item from government or any other group,” explained T/A Chapananga.

Public Health Specialist for Water for People, Steven Kumwenda said the organisation has drilled 90 boreholes in Chikhwawa this year, and is expected to drill 70 more in 2016 to further improve sanitation and hygiene in the district.

“Household sanitation affects everything because if sanitation is poor, people will get sick, that means children won’t go to school, some can’t be involved in socio-economic activities and cannot participate in the development of their communities and the country at large.

“So on one hand, we say let’s have pit latrines, and on the other hand we are proving water because without water efforts on sanitation will not work. We are happy with progress being made,” he said.

This year, the day was commemorated under the theme ‘Toilets and nutrition’.