THE PROBLEM OF PORTABLE DRINKING WATER AND ITS SOLUTION
INTRODUCTION
Water is a key ingredient to life. Some even opined that water is life for there is no singular living thing that does need water for survival.
Access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene is a core necessity for human survival that a large portion of the world, especially developing countries, still struggle to meet.
In Nigeria, UNICEF reported that close to 70 million people, out of the total population of over 200 million, lacked access to clean water, while 110 million lacked access to sanitation in 2013. The impact of this shortage is dire as 124,000 children under the age of five die because of diarrhea that is mainly caused by unsafe water, bad sanitation and bad hygiene.
Moreover, it decreases school enrollment and disproportionately affects girls who bare the responsibility of carrying water. Finding the solution for Nigeria’s water quality is, therefore, a pressing issue that requires all responsible parties to participate.
EFFECTS.
As highlighted above, shortage and poor access to improved water and sanitation in Nigeria remains a major contributing factor to high morbidity and mortality rates among children under five. The use of contaminated drinking water and poor sanitary conditions result in increased vulnerability to water-borne diseases, including diarrhoea which leads to deaths of more than 70,000 children under five annually.
Seventy-three per cent of the diarrhoeal and enteric disease burden is associated with poor access to adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and is disproportionately borne by poorer children. Frequent episodes of WASH related ill-health in children, contribute to absenteeism in school, and malnutrition. Only 26.5 per cent of the population use improved drinking water sources and sanitation facilities. Also, 23.5 per cent of the population defecate in the open.
SOLUTIONS.
Provision of equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene services.
This can be done by drilling industrial boreholes in various communitiest that lacks access to clean water.
Strengthen government efforts to eradicate the practice of open defecation.
This will reduce the possibility of water being conterminated precisely, preventing waterborne diseases .
Strengthen tailored community approaches to total sanitation including Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in rural, peri-urban and riverine settings.
Strengthen national and subnational bodies’ capacity to develop and implement equitable and gender-sensitive WASH policies, strategies and guidelines.
Ensure sustainability of water services in rural communities.
Mass sensitisation of people on the importance of drinking clean water on their health.
CONCLUSION.
The problems of shortage of water and access to clean water lives for decades despite government and private sectors efforts. But if the proffered solutions were implemented,the problem would have been nipped in the bud long ago.
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