Like everywhere else in Africa, Nigeria needs adequate facilities to secure access to water, sanitation and hygiene. The Nigerian government’s recently released policy document is a good reminder of this. The roadmap is entitled “National Guidelines for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Health Facilities”.
According to the World Bank, about 60 million Nigerians live without access to basic drinking water services, 80 million without access to improved sanitation facilities, and 167 million without access to a basic handwashing facility. The challenge is to strengthen these services in the West African country’s health facilities. “And this will be done through the provision of new facilities and water, sanitation and hygiene systems as an effective strategy for the prevention and control of infectious diseases,” says Osagie Ehanire, Nigeria’s Minister of Health.
Among these diseases is Covid-19. And the Nigerian authorities are worried; at least 95% of the country’s health centres could soon become epicentres of the disease because of the lack of access to combined water, sanitation and hygiene services.
Read also –
In addition to building new facilities to improve these services, Nigeria could also experiment with some of the measures recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO). These include conducting a situation analysis, assessment, setting targets and defining a national roadmap.
In addition, “every health centre in the country should have a team to monitor and ensure good sanitation and hygiene,” says Walter Kazardi Mulumbo, WHO’s representative in Nigeria. These efforts will eventually lead to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which focuses on universal access to water and sanitation by 2030.
Inès Magoum