Environmental health officer calls for media attention on sanitation issues

Cape Coast, Aug 8, GNA- Ms Irene Mensah, an Environmental Health Officer, on Thursday stressed the need for media personnel in the country to highlight issues about sanitation, which she said had become a national crisis.

She said studies by the Joint Monitoring Platform (JMP), an International NGO, indicated that Ghana ranked 48th in Africa and 14th in West Africa in sanitation coverage, and that only 10 per cent of Ghanaians had access to improved latrines, with 51 per cent using shared latrines.

Ms Mensah made the call at a ‘Meet-The –Press’ session/ photo exhibition, as part of awareness creation activities to mark the International Year of Sanitation in the Central Region, at Cape Coast.

The session, which was organized by the Regional Environmental Health Office in collaboration with the Regional Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), was also attended by health officials and representatives of NGOs.

Ms Mensah said it was imperative to put all hands on deck to enable the nation accomplish the Millennium Development Goal (MDG)for sanitation, which is geared towards reducing the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by half by 2015.

She pointed out that the nation cannot advance to a middle income status with the present level of “deplorable sanitation”, adding “We must do all there is to avert this deterioration in our national environment situation”.

According to her, although it was “quite encouraging” that 62.7per cent of 2,024 household members in the region have improved sanitation facility, more still needed to be done, since it still ranked fifth nationally, with regard to sanitation coverage.

She therefore described the mass media’s role as very crucial, adding that media practitioners need to research and disseminate information to help improve sanitation.

Nana Poku, Cape Coast Metropolitan Environmental Health Officer, said more than 40 per cent of the world’s population lacked toilet facilities, which was contributing to poor sanitation.

He also underlined the need

 

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