Unsafe sanitation driver of enormous public health costs: Experts

New Delhi

Unsafe sanitation leads to enormous public health costs andthere is a need to provide universal safe, sustainable sanitation, healthcareexperts said here on Thursday.

Apart from high mortality rates due to the spread of diseases, poor sanitationalso incurs high public health costs, they said at an online discussionorganised by the National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (NFSSM)Alliance.

Madhu Krishna, Deputy Director, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-India, saidproviding universal safe, sustainable sanitation is like vaccination and theneed for it is growing in urban areas now.

"We have invested extensively in sanitation and will continue to do so. Itis evident that untreated human waste has an adverse impact on our health andsafe sanitation is required to prevent a host of communicable diseases. Lookingat it from the gender lens, service delivery impacts women and girls more.

"Therefore, we need to take an inclusive approach. Ninety per cent of thefrontline workers are women, yet sanitation facilities are not ensured forthem," she said.

Neeraj Jain, Country Director, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health(PATH), India, said there is a need to look at preventive and curativemeasures, where preventive is appropriate WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene)practices and curative is access to health services.

"Diseases spread due to bad hygiene and environment. We are a largecountry where scalable solutions are critical for the success of a publichealth programme. "We are witnessing large-scale funding in healthcare and we need to alignWASH under the health priorities of the country," he said.

Akhila Sivadas, Executive Director, Centre for Advocacy and Research, said,"The groundswell from communities, their own compulsion, their owninvolvement and participation is absolutely necessary to drive the agenda ofhealth outcomes."