Agency Blames Water-Borne Diseases For Children’s Stunted Growth

The WaterAid Nigeria
has condemned the high rate of water-related diseases in the country, saying it aids stunted growth in children.
The organisation’s Country Representative Dr Michael Ojo, made this known to newsmen  in Abuja, while reacting to the upsurge of water-related diseases since 2012.
“There are diseases that are waterborne, water related and some that are linked to water and we have health conditions which have requirements for water.
“We need to highlight the impact of Water; Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) on health, especially on the health of our children.
“There are children dying every day in our country and not only from diarrhoea, but also other water related diseases.
“For those of our children who don’t die because of lack of access to water and sanitation between the ages of the zero and five, about 40 per cent statistics have shown are stunted.
“They are not growing as they should, they are underdeveloped physically and the reason for that is because of the repeated bouts of diarrhoea that they have to contend with.”
Ojo explained that for young children in poor and vulnerable communities, the little nutrition gained through food was lost through faeces and vomit, while suffering from water-borne diseases.
“These children are not developing sufficiently to utilise all the nutrients to grow.
“Even when we are feeding them well, the food that should be absorbed into their systems to help them grow is not absorbed.
“Rather, they are lost in the faeces when they have diarrhoea and when a child is not developing physically as supposed to, he is not also developing mentally.
“So, what we are doing with the lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene is that we are starting up a crisis for ourselves in the future.
“This is a crisis of human capital where we have a generation of people who are not able to fulfil their potential because of the experiences or the circumstances they face.”
WaterAid statistics reveal that about 100, 000 children under the age of five die of diarrhoea every year, 37 million Nigerians still practise open defecation.
Another 112 million Nigerians do not have access to improved sanitation.
Also, recurrent cases of cholera have been reported since 2010 in states like Lagos, Benue, Zamfara, Ebonyi, Benue, Nassarawa, Kano, Jigawa, Osun, Bauchi and Oyo.
Most of the diarrhoea and cholera cases are due to consumption of water that has been heavily contaminated.