101 Nigerian children die of diarrhoea daily- WHO

Dr Babatope Babalobi and Emmanuella Iheajunwa eWASH Nigeria

 

About 37,000 under five Nigerian children died of diarrhoea in 2019 due to inadequate access to safe drinking water. This translated to 101 deaths per day, which is the highest in all the 183 countries surveyed reports eWASH.

Also, in the same year, resulting from unsafe water:

• 26,000 under-five Nigerian children died of Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI);
• 3,336,901 suffered from Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) due to diarrhoea infections;
• 2,369,576 suffered from Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) due to Acute respiratory infections (ARI) hygiene. eWASH Nigeria: www.washnigeria.com

These facts emerged from a World Health Organisation (WHO) report titled: The burden of disease attributable to unsafe drinking water, sanitation, and Hygiene: 2019 Update, released yesterday. It highlighted the burden of diseases and mortality rates attributed to unsafe Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH).

The report shows how inadequate safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services caused preventable deaths and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), particularly among children under five in 183 WHO Member States. eWASH Nigeria: www.washnigeria.com

Even though the estimates were from data sourced in 2019, the true burden in 2023 will be much higher.  Its statistics were based on four health outcomes: diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, undernutrition (protein energy malnutrition) and soil-transmitted helminthiases.

On global estimates, the main findings of the report are:

• Diarrheal diseases accounted for two-thirds of the total WASH burden, with over one million deaths and 55 million DALYs comprising 505 000 diarrhoea deaths from unsafe drinking water, 564 000 from unsafe sanitation and 384 000 from unsafe hand hygiene.
• Acute respiratory infections (ARI) due to inadequate hand hygiene constituted the second largest proportion of the WASH disease burdens.
• ARI caused 356 000 deaths and 17 million DALYs, representing 14% of the total ARI disease burden. In addition, 10% of the undernutrition disease burden and 100% of the disease burden from soil-transmitted helminthiases were attributable to unsafe WASH.
• Among children under the age of five, the total WASH-attributable disease burden amounted to 395 000 deaths and 37 million DALYs, representing 7.6% of all deaths and 7.5% of all DALYs in this age group. This included 273 000 deaths from diarrhoea and 112 000 deaths from ARIs. These two are among the leading infectious causes of death for children under five globally. eWASH Nigeria: www.washnigeria.com 

Estimates for Nigeria in the report show the following:

• 37, 107 under-five Nigerian children died of diarrheal due to inadequate drinking water in 2019.
• 60,180 other Nigerians died of diarrheal due to inadequate drinking water in 2019.
• 26,595 under-five Nigerian children died of Acute respiratory infections (ARI) due to inadequate drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in 2019.
• 33,094 other Nigerians died of Acute respiratory infections (ARI) due to inadequate drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in 2019.
• 93,192 under-five Nigerian children died due to unsafe water, sanitation and lack of hygiene in 2019, using Sustainable Development Goal indicator 3.9.2. as a reference. This represents a mortality rate of 278.9.
• 144, 157 other Nigerians died due to unsafe water, unsafe sanitation and lack of hygiene in 2019, using Sustainable Development Goal indicator 3.9.2. as a reference. This represents a mortality rate of 72.8 for females and 70.7 for males.

The report also revealed the following situation regarding Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) due to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services in 2019.The WHO defines DALYs for a disease or health condition as the sum of years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLLs) and years of healthy life lost due to disability (YLDs) due to prevalent cases of the disease or health condition in a population.

• Diarrhoea water infections caused DALYs for 3,336,901 under-five Nigerian children and 4,703,175 other Nigerians in 2019.
• Diarrhea Sanitation resulted in DALYs for 3,203,985 under-five Nigerian children and 4,515,838  other Nigerians in 2019.
• Diarrhoea Hygiene resulted in DALYs for 279,792 under-five Nigerian children and 3,072,294 other Nigerians in 2019.
• Diarrhoea WASH resulted in DALYs for 8,310,040 under-five Nigerians, 5,895,970 other Nigerians males, and  4,014,386 other Nigerian females in 2019.
• ARI Hygiene resulted in DALYs for 2,369,576 under-five Nigerian children and 5,625119 other Nigerians in 2019
• WASH-related Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections resulted in DALYs for 59,947 under-five Nigerian children and  169,759 other Nigerians in 2019
• Undernutrition WASH resulted in DALYs for 26,663 Nigerian males and 36,489 females in 2019

eWASH Nigeria: www.washnigeria.com

Commenting on the report, Mr Bruce Gordon, Head of WHO Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Health Unit, said, “It is clear that inadequate access to safe WASH services continues to pose a significant and preventable health risk, particularly to the most vulnerable populations in low and lower-middle-income countries’.

WHO urged Governments, with support from UN agencies, multilateral partners, private sectors and civil society organizations, to take action to reduce the WASH-attributed diseases by :

• Radically accelerating action to make safe WASH a reality for all
• Focusing efforts on the poorest and most disadvantaged.
• Adapt national monitoring systems to improve data on population exposure to safely managed services.

eWASH Nigeria: www.washnigeria.com