nasty comfort rooms
A recent World Health Organization study resulted in a report that 1.5 million Filipinos under age five suffer from diarrhea at any time due to lack of access to clean water, basic sanitation facilities and poor hygiene practices.
About ten thousand Philippine children die annually from diarrhea, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Republic of the Philippines Department of Health.
Diarrhea is the fourth-leading cause of death among kids less than five years old. The Philippines ranks second among 13 Southeast Asian and East Asian nations studied, with the number of reported diarrhea cases nearly double that of the other countries.
Reportedly less than half of children below 12 years wash their hands after urinating and defecating and before grabbing food to eat. Parents and schoolteachers fail to teach youths to washing properly.
In “comfort rooms” in the Philippines, these are often missing: plumbing, flush toilets, sinks, hot water, soap, paper towels, hand-sanitizing gel, cleanliness…
If Filipinos would wash their hands with hot water and germicidal soap after urinating and defecating and wiping with hands, and before eating food with their hands, perhaps millions of locals and tourists would not suffer easily-preventable illnesses. And ten thousand children wouldn’t die from diarrhea each year.