Sanitation and Faecal Waste Disposal in Shanty Slums of Douala, Cameroon 1. Introduction Wherever people gather, their waste accumulates. Despite the fact that there has been progress in sanitation hygiene with an improvement in health, many people still have no adequate means of disposing their wastes. This aspect is a growing nuisance for heavily populated areas, with risks of infectious diseases such as the very young, elderly and people suffering from diseases that weaken their immune defence. The accumulation of faecal contamination in rivers and other water features is not only a human risk but other organisms are affected, threatening the ecological balance of the environment. The discharge of untreated wastewater and excreta into the environment affects human health be numerous means (WHO report 2004). More than a billion people currently live in slums with the number expected to increase in the coming decades. Majority of slums are located in urban centres in less economically developed countries (Ron Mahabir et al. 2016).Sanitation is an important aspect of socio cultural development because low sanitation index leads to host diseases. Reddy and colleagues argued that sanitation implies much more than defecation issues and that cleaning tasks are mostly carried out by women with little assistance from men so need to be involved when taking decisions in relationship to sanitation or designing programs. (Reddy, BS & Snehalatha, M. 2011) 1.1. Literature Review One of the focuses of the millennium development goals is on everyday life in slums reflected in some of the researches and literature through interviews of women and girls on their daily coping strategies as well as experiences. Bapat & Agarwai (2003) carried out a study interviewing women on their challenges of using filthy toilets and in all types of weather in Mumbai and Pune. In eight South Asian countries, over a billion people are without safe sanitation in a study that was focused on the aspirations of thousands of thousands of women in different ages and physical abilities. FANSA 2016. Poor women working in an informal sector especially domestic cleaners, waste rag pickers have challenges of toilet facilities accessibility due to the fact that they have problems finding toilets (Dey and Wilk 2015). Adolescent girls living in informal settlements in Bangalore when asked on what could be done to improve their lives, most responded that the needed access to safe toilet. The women deprivations these girls face due to lack of sanitation facilities in education, privacy, mobility in public places and harassment they face chronic communicable diseases (Nallaris (2015; p. 73). Abrahams and Mathews carried out a study where they asked 16 years and older girls how they perceived the risks of using toilets at school and how they negotiated such dangers. This revealed that the schools either had no toilets or filthy and very inadequate ones which were dark, smelly; blocked and broken (Abrahams & Mathews 2006, p. 752). The ground around these toilets was...
Environment, Subsistence and Cholera in Douala, Cameroon Context and LiteratureThe causative agent of cholera is bacteria called Vibriocholera. It causes a diarrheal disease with epidemic and pandemic potentials. The aforementioned is an enteric disease characterized by profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting which lead to dehydration, electrolytes loss and eventual hypovolemic shock as well as renal failure. If no urgent medical attention is given, death can occur within hours in 30 to 40 % of cases (Sack DA, et al. 2004). Cholera is a public health concern especially in less developed countries having poor hygiene, rudimentary sanitation conditions and inadequate supply of potable water (Morris JG Jr, 2013). The epidemic potential is conferred by the potent cholera toxin (Crump JA, Bopp et al., 2003). Vibrio cholera is autochthonous to the aquatic environment as it is detected in various aquatic environments like brackish water, marine and fresh water and its occurrence in non-endemic areas associated with floods that contaminated water sources. It can survive in some aquatic environments for many months and even years associated with zooplankton and other aquatic organisms (Colwell RR, 1996). Its occurrence in aquatic habitat is influenced by physicochemical characteristics where non-culturable state with potentials to revert to transmissible state when climatic conditions become favorable. This implies that in endemic regions, aquatic environments may serve as reservoir even in the absence of outbreak of cholera. The deep understanding of these factors can help to prevent outbreaks through disease prediction and implementation of timely measures. Cholera treatment involves rehydration to replace the lost fluids and antibiotics to destroy the bacteria preventing disease spread reducing the duration of illness (Kumar PA et al., 2009). Cholera has been endemic in Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon since 1971 as the on-going 7 th pandemic reached Africa. Outbreaks of cholera have been occurring almost after two years (WHO, 2012). These outbreaks often start in Bepanda, a slum area with poor sanitation and hygiene conditions (Guevart E, Noeske et al., 2006). Although many authors endeavor to study cholera reservoirs even when there is no outbreak of the disease, our focus will go beyond the physical environments but to the meaning that is given to cholera related phenomena in the environmental and sociocultural dimensions. ProblemThe fight against cholera has been successful in many parts of the country due to preventive and treatment measures employed by the Ministry of public health. Methods used were biomedical basing on the biology of the cholera vibrio and related etiological routes. Focus was made to stop transmission and propagation through these routes. Despite these efforts, cholera resurfaces in Douala almost in yearly basis and at times episodes lead to serious epidemics with many cases and high mortality rate. ProblematicA biologist like T. Rawlings (2010: 5) wrote on the interactions of vibrio chol...
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