Lack of soap means illness, death for millions of children

 Lack of soap means illness, death for millions of children

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Millions of people in developing countries don't have access to soap or clean water

Many young children die because their immune systems can't fight diarrheal diseases

Often, experts say, children and their parents don't even know how to wash their hands

CDC doctor: "To change a community's habits, reach the children first"

(CNN) -- It still makes Fatoma Dia's eyes widen whenever the Hilton hotel cleaning worker sees a bar of barely used soap on a bathroom counter.

"This," she says, picking it up with a gloved hand and dropping it in a brown bucket, "is valuable where I come from."

The 35-year-old grew up in a mountainous region of southern Sudan where soap can cost more than a day's wages. Because some in the region, could not wash, they got sick.

Across the globe, 2.4 billion people do not have access to clean sanitation¹, according to the World Health Organization. An estimated 1.5 million children die every year because their immune systems are not mature enough to battle diarrheal and respiratory diseases spread in contaminated environments.

Sicknesses related to contaminated water supplies and poor human hygiene² tend to plague poorer regions in sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South America, East Asia and the Caribbean. Water-borne illnesses such as cholera³ can hit countries suddenly, particularly in the wake of a natural disaster where there is little infrastructure⁴ previously⁵ in place to handle sustainable cleanup and recovery.

A recent example is Haiti. Hit by an earthquake in January 2010, many Haitians were forced to live in tent camps and use water that was contaminated. Incidents of cholera plagued the country, a problem that continues today.

It seems so simple, soap and water. But imagine never being taught how to do that.

Dr. Eric Mintz, leader of the Global Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Epidemiology team at the CDC

Politically vulnerable nations or countries in the grip of war are also breeding grounds for sickness caused by poor sanitation. Illness tends to spread quicker when people are forced into cramped⁶ and overcrowded refugee camps where there are few bathrooms or none at all.

Dia, who says she was the victim of religious persecution⁷ in Sudan, came to the U.S. several years ago. Her immigration liaison⁸ connected her with a job cleaning hotel rooms. In her home country, she personally had access to soap. But coming from a place with little sanitation to a hotel that observed a spick-and-span ethos was strange.

"It may be hard for people here to understand because it is so easy to wash, everything is here for you, you don't ever think about it," she said. "Keep in mind that what you do every day may be the biggest task of the day for someone else."

Each day she works, Dia takes a little extra time during her shift to retrieve⁹ all gently used bars of soap in each room. She and other cleaning staff at this Hilton typically collect several hundred pounds of soap each month.

The nonprofit Global Soap Project, which works with more than 300 hotels across the country, relies on their hard work and many other volunteers to pick up those heavy hauls and deliver it to a reprocessing location near Atlanta, where the soap is stripped, cleaned, reprocessed and then tested to make sure there is no trace of bacteria left. The bars are then cut into smaller pieces and shipped to nations such as Haiti, Kenya, Swaziland and Uganda.

The founder¹⁰ of the Global Soap Project, Derreck Kayongo, is a Ugandan war refugee and one of the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2011.

"I was shocked just to know how much (soap) at the end of the day was thrown away," Kayongo said. Each year, hundreds of millions of soap bars are discarded in North America alone. "Are we really throwing away that much soap at the expense of other people who don't have anything? It just doesn't sound right."

Children are key

In recent years, international health organizations, including WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have had success facilitating better sanitation in needy¹¹ regions and teaching people the importance of basic hand washing. Since July 2010, more than 40 countries and regions have started hand hygiene campaigns, according to the WHO.

"It seems so simple, soap and water. But imagine never being taught how to do that," said Dr. Eric Mintz, who leads the Global Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Epidemiology team at the CDC. "Washing hands is an afterthought for us. But at some point in American history, in the early part of the century, we had to build and improve our water infrastructure."

Mintz has worked in the field of water-borne illnesses for 22 years, specializing in the treatment of cholera, dysentery and typhoid fever. He has been part of projects to build latrines in villages in Kenya and Haiti. He also participated in a campaign in Kenya where school teachers encouraged students to learn how to wash their hands by making it seem cool to join a hand washing club. The children were sent home with comic books that explained when and how to wash in the hope that the kids would teach their parents.

"Children are often much more receptive than their parents or other adults because they don't feel that we are outsiders judging them and telling them they're living wrong," Mintz said. "The adults feel less threatened when their children, innocently in the home, pass along what they've learned. To change a community's habits, reach the children first."

Colorful messages on cleanliness

Mintz and other health care experts also stress the effectiveness of posting large, brightly colored posters in public places to advocate frequent hand washing. Many point to the recent success of Global Handwashing Day to primarily target children and schools in developing countries. The campaign has a bright, cheerful and easily recognized logo, and its website offers tools to use in classrooms and community centers.

In Ghana, where children suffer as many as 35 episodes of diarrhea and respiratory infections a year, children celebrated¹² Global Handwashing Day (October 15) by performing plays about washing with soap. Two talk radio shows made it their main topic of conversation.

In Somalia, hand-washing facilities were installed in health-care clinics and schools, a huge step forward in a war-torn region that suffers from a shortage of clean water and overcrowding in displacement¹³ camps and settlements.

Radio ads also encouraged good hygiene and dispelled¹⁴ myths about illnesses resulting from bad sanitation. One 9-year-old Somalian girl wrote in an essay that she thought getting diarrhea was a "punishment from God" until she heard otherwise on the radio.

In Pakistan, a new animated¹⁵ character named Sabu helped teach children the importance of hand washing with soap. Watch a video of Sabu on YouTube

Haiti was a big focus of the campaign this year. More than 400,000 have been sickened from cholera since the disease emerged in October 2010.

At a Port-au-Prince school that was rebuilt by UNICEF, children learned a catchy¹⁶ phrase: "Good morning, water! Good morning, soap! Goodbye, microbes!" They then sang a song about why it's important to wash before eating and after using the bathroom. They also practiced washing their hands, a habit the Global Soap Project hopes they'll keep after recently sending many bars of soap to the nation.

Fatoma Dia thinks about her own 15-year-old daughter when she considers the children whose lives may be saved by her simple task of collecting soap every day.

"I know that there are little ones who care and need this," she said, dropping another bar into a bucket. "I am proud to do this. To be so far away, but to know I reach my people in this way, this makes me happy."

1 sanitation   

n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备

参考例句：

• The location is exceptionally poor,viewed from the sanitation point.从卫生角度来看，这个地段非常糟糕。
• Many illnesses are the result,f inadequate sanitation.许多疾病都来源于不健全的卫生设施。

2 hygiene   

n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic）

参考例句：

• Their course of study includes elementary hygiene and medical theory.他们的课程包括基础卫生学和医疗知识。
• He's going to give us a lecture on public hygiene.他要给我们作关于公共卫生方面的报告。

3 cholera   

n.霍乱

参考例句：

• The cholera outbreak has been contained.霍乱的发生已被控制住了。
• Cholera spread like wildfire through the camps.霍乱在营地里迅速传播。

4 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

5 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

6 cramped   

a.狭窄的

参考例句：

• The house was terribly small and cramped, but the agent described it as a bijou residence. 房子十分狭小拥挤，但经纪人却把它说成是小巧别致的住宅。
• working in cramped conditions 在拥挤的环境里工作

7 persecution   

n. 迫害,烦扰

参考例句：

• He had fled from France at the time of the persecution. 他在大迫害时期逃离了法国。
• Their persecution only serves to arouse the opposition of the people. 他们的迫害只激起人民对他们的反抗。

8 liaison   

n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通

参考例句：

• She acts as a liaison between patients and staff.她在病人与医护人员间充当沟通的桥梁。
• She is responsible for liaison with researchers at other universities.她负责与其他大学的研究人员联系。

9 retrieve   

vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索

参考例句：

• He was determined to retrieve his honor.他决心恢复名誉。
• The men were trying to retrieve weapons left when the army abandoned the island.士兵们正试图找回军队从该岛撤退时留下的武器。

10 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

11 needy   

adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的

参考例句：

• Although he was poor,he was quite generous to his needy friends.他虽穷，但对贫苦的朋友很慷慨。
• They awarded scholarships to needy students.他们给贫苦学生颁发奖学金。

12 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

13 displacement   

n.移置，取代，位移，排水量

参考例句：

• They said that time is the feeling of spatial displacement.他们说时间是空间位移的感觉。
• The displacement of all my energy into caring for the baby.我所有精力都放在了照顾宝宝上。

14 dispelled   

v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His speech dispelled any fears about his health. 他的发言消除了人们对他身体健康的担心。
• The sun soon dispelled the thick fog. 太阳很快驱散了浓雾。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

16 catchy   

adj.易记住的，诡诈的，易使人上当的

参考例句：

• We need a new slogan.The old one's not catchy enough.我们需要新的口号，旧的不够吸引人。
• The chorus is very catchy to say the least.副歌部分很容易上口。