The new guidelines set out four principal recommendations:
- Sanitation interventions should ensure entire communities have access to toilets that safely contain excreta.
- The full sanitation system should undergo local health risk assessments to protect individuals from exposure to excreta.
- Sanitation should be integrated into regular local government-led planning and service provision.
- The health sector should invest more in sanitation planning to protect public health.
Comment:
- The WHO developed the new guidelines on sanitation and health because current sanitation programmes are not achieving anticipated health gains. Worldwide, 2.3 billion people lack basic sanitation (with almost half of them forced to defecate in the open).
- For every US $1 invested in sanitation, the WHO estimates a nearly six-fold return as measured by lower health costs, increased productivity and fewer premature deaths.
