15 counties with highest rate of open defecation plan to eliminate vice by 2025

Some 15 counties said to have the highest rates of open defecation converged in Narok County yesterday under the Kenya Sanitation Alliance umbrella to discuss ways of eliminating open defecation by 2025.

Kenya is among the countries that signed a declaration of commitment to end open defecation in the next two years and health officials from the devolved units were tasked to provide their inputs to the action plan and the way forward to achieve the goal before the end of the period.

The Kenya Sanitation Alliance is designed to help the country achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, on water and sanitation, as well as the Kenya Vision 2030 to transform the country into an industrializing, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens in a clean and secure environment.

Addressing the press at the Zebu Hotel, where the summit was held, the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) director Adan Mohamed said over 60 per cent of diseases treated in Primary health centres were easily preventable and caused by unhygienic conditions, like drinking dirty water, open defecation and living in an unclean environment.

“Most of the counties with poor sanitation did not have resources, hence we had to come together to put up policies that would help us mobilize resources to improve sanitation,” he added.

Mohammed added that the country should not be using a lot of money to treat diseases that are easily preventable and instead should put more effort into fighting emerging lifestyle diseases, like diabetes, cancer, hypertension and blood pressure that are becoming a threat to humanity.

According to the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, almost 85% of open defecation in Kenya takes place in 15 counties: Baringo, Garissa, Homa Bay, Isiolo, Kajiado, Kilifi, Kwale, Mandera, Marsabit, Narok, Samburu, Tana River, Turkana, Wajir, and West Pokot.

The African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) WASH Programme Manager Daniel Kurau observed that safe sanitation is a right of every Kenyan and the only way to make the country free of water borne diseases.

Kurau said his organization had allocated Ksh150 million to improve sanitation and hygiene in Narok County.

“Some of the areas we want to major in are ensuring that all villages in the county are Open Defecation Free (ODF). We want to move from constructing pit latrines for the community to motivating the people to build for themselves toilets in their respective homes,” he said.

Narok County Executive for Health and Sanitation Anthony Namunguk said the county government sets aside Ksh10 million every year to improve sanitation in the county.

Namunkuk regretted that the county uses over Ksh800,000 every year to treat sanitation-related diseases, which could be prevented if the residents observed good hygiene and sanitation.

“Poor sanitation is poor health, poor education and poor livelihood. We do not want to continue spending too much money on diseases that can be easily controlled through practising good hygiene in our counties,” he noted.

In Kenya, over 6,600 children under five are estimated to die each year from diarrhoea, of which 80 per cent are attributable to poor water, sanitation and hygiene.

The Kenya Sanitation Alliance is led by the Ministries of Health and Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation and funded by the Government of Japan and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).