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08/23/2008: "Getting poor to use toilets a major health conundrum, forum told"

Humanitarian organisations have for decades tried various ways -- be it new systems, pumps or subsidies -- of getting people in developing countries to stop defecating outdoors due to the serious health risks concerned.

But despite their efforts, an estimated 1.2 billion people, primarily in Asia and Africa, still don't use toilets to defecate, a forum of experts meeting in Stockholm was told.

For many extremely poor people who are given toilets by aid groups, it becomes the most precious item they own and therefore they use it as a religious shrine or a dry place to store firewood, international development consultant Kamal Kar said.

She cited the example of India, where 48 percent of the population, or some 665 million people, still practice "open defecation".

[ This is so comparable to the refusal of people to accept the need for eugenics, to stop us drowning in defecation. ]


http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Getting_poor_to_use_toilets_a_major_health_conundrum_forum_told_999.html