ten ₱esos

Today I read in a national newspaper the findings of a study conducted by the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the Republic of the Philippines Department of Health. About ten thousand Philippine children die annually from diarrhea.  Can you believe that?  That’s preventable childhood mortality!

Over 70,000 children in the Philippines have died of diarrhea in seven years studied!  Diarrhea is the fourth-leading cause of death of kids less than five years old and the third-leading cause of illness among the children.

The Philippines ranks second among thirteen Asian nations studied, with the number of reported diarrhea cases nearly double that of the other countries which include Cambodia, China, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam.  Only China, a land of a billion persons, has more diarrhea-caused deaths per year.

The W.H.O. report, released Friday, said that ten to twenty percent of Filipino children under age five suffer from diarrhea at one time, and attributed the prevalence of the suffering to poor hygiene.

The incidence of diarrhea may easily be reduced by having kids wash their hands with water and soap, particularly before dining. However, most kids age 12 years or less don’t wash hands after using toilets or before eating, due to lack of clean water and soap and poor hygienic practices (lack of hand-washing) modeled by their parents.

The Philippines’ National Center for Disease Prevention and Control has reported that only 20 percent of children below age five, 37 percent of adolescents, 44 percent of adults, and 50 percent of senior citizens wash their hands after they use toilets.

After 28 people died suffering diarrhea in Palawan in late 2005 and early 2006, Health Department Secretary Francisco Duque urged Filipinos to wash their hands before eating.

Last month, during a cholera outbreak that killed twenty people in a town in Sultan Kudarat Province, Philippine National Red Cross Chairman Richard Gordon said, “We have to educate the people” and “Practicing proper hygiene, washing hands before eating, and boiling water before drinking—these are simple but effective ways of preventing the occurrence of diseases such as diarrhea.”

Rotavirus infection is considered to be the leading cause of severe diarrhea and vomiting in infants and children.  It causes 25% of an estimated 500,000 diarrheal deaths every year in developing countries including the Philippines.

Studies have also shown that 139 million reported cases of gastroenteritis, 25 million clinic visits and two million hospitalizations were due to rotavirus infection.  Kids between six months and two years of age have the greatest risk of sickness and death.

Rotavirus is highly contagious and can survive outside a host for a long time.  It is usually transmitted through oral-fecal route.  After an incubation period of two to seven days, there could be an abrupt onset of nausea, vomiting and fever, followed by severe, watery diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and even death.

Those are the symptoms that I suffered in 2006 after swimming in the Gulf of Mexico amid Panama City Beach storm water runoff / sewer drain runoff.  Incidental oral ingestion of even small amounts of Gulf surface water contaminated with a virus – E. Coli or rotavirus or another- while swimming led to severe sickness.

Rotavirus infection usually lasts three to nine days, but diarrhea can persist three weeks. Because the virus can survive in the environment, transmission can occur through person-to-person spread, ingestion of contaminated water or food and touching contaminated surfaces then not washing hands before eating.

What’s alarming about the Rotavirus disease is that improved hygiene, such as frequent hand-washing, disinfection of infants’ toys and play areas, is not likely to reduce incidence of the disease.  A small dot of contamination contains hundreds of thousands of the rotavirus.

There is no specific treatment for rotavirus infection – only measures to relieve symptoms, such as oral or intravenous fluid intake and fever management.

I have encouraged the kids whom I deal with to wash their hands after riding jeepneys, taxis, rental bicycles, tricycles and horses, after using toilets and before we take meals.  I have given to them bottles of germicidal hand soap and alcohol gel hand sanitizer in pump bottles to use before taking meals at home in Baguio Gold, where they don’t have hot and cold running water on tap and live surrounded by animal feces.  I would hate for these kids to become deathly sick when such suffering is preventable.  †