In Manila there are a lot of problems with air pollution, hygiene practices and the lack of good sanitation. These are the most important hygiene and health related risks in the Philippines.
One-sixth of all deaths in the Philippines and approximately 6,000 premature deaths a year are because of hygiene, water-borne diseases and poor sanitation conditions. Diarrhea is the most common water-borne disease, then intestinal worms, typhoid, and cholera. These diseases are very common because more than 25 million Filipinos do not have a basic access to sanitation and more than 13 million do not have proper water resources. Thanks to the water pollution the costs increases, which led to more than 6.7 billion in 2006.
Air pollution makes this even worse, and therefore it is another big issue. The most common diseases are chronic bronchitis, pneumonia and cardiovascular diseases. And this is not going away soon, the city has a lot of factors which increases this. Like the smoke the vehicles leave behind, but also something small like tobacco smoke. The people who clean the city, which are more than 18 million people, are the biggest victims of this air pollution
All the costs of treatment and lost income, due to air pollution, is more than 7.6 billion per year. Although there have been some improvements in alleviating diseases from the lack of hygiene and air pollution, which is thanks the government's more pro-active attempt for the environmental role in health, it is still a major problem.
There should be more easy-to-access information on different methods and also more improvements in health infrastructure, such as good sanitation facilities and a healthy water resource to prevent health risks from water pollution.
The government is now busy with discouraging people to use vehicles with high smoke emissions. Which is a big factor in air pollutions
Quick Facts
2005
Population growth (annual %)
1.87
Population, total (millions)
85.50
Life expectancy at birth, total (years)
71.05
Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 live births)
27.50
GNI (current US$) (millions)
98535
GNI per capita, Atlas method (current US$)
1160.0
Prevalence of HIV, total (% of population ages 15-49)
.
These are the Ten Leading Causes of Illness in the Philippines
1. Acute Lower RTI and Pneumonia
2. Bronchitis/ Bronchiolitis
3. Acute Watery Diarrhea. Influenza
5. Hypertension
6. TB Respiratory
7. Pneumonia
8. Diseases of the Heart
9. Malaria
10.Dengue Fever
The most common diseases:
degree of risk: high
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever
vectorborne diseases: dengue fever, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis
water contact disease: leptospirosis
Of these diseases almost all of them are caused by the hygiene.
Habitat
A lot of conflicts are also because of their habitat, and what they are seen like. Because people cannot get easy higher up.
The biggest one and the most known one is the Payatas
The poorest families live on the Filipinos and collect trash of the dump. One of the dump places is Payatas, on the edge of Manilla. Where 4500 ton waste is dumped every day. More than 30.000 people, also children, live on this dump. Through day and night trucks are coming in and out with lots of garbage. This garbage consists of (operation) waste, from hospitals. It is not difficult to conclude that a lot of people get sick because of all the bacteria and germs that are produced by the garbage. Because of all the garbage that is dumped, the hill keeps getting bigger and bigger. This happens through the chemical processes who are caused by the scalding and joining together of substances. Around the dump there is a big haze which you can see on a very large distance. For most of the inhabitants of the Payates there is no other option than to work on the dump. More than 400 families collect garbage to support their family. Children from already a young age help with collection plastic, empty cans and other stuff which helps to produce some money.
In short Payatas means a big hill with stinking garbage and a source for the incomes of hundreds of families
Sanitation
More than 2.6 billion people in the world have one thing in common, which is; they do not have good access to basic sanitation.
Worldwide, there are about 1.7 million deaths a year, with 90% of them being children, who died mainly through infectious diarrhea. Which was caused by unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene. 1.5 million children a year could be saved by access to sanitation, good hygiene and a safe water supply
A good sanitation will reduce children illnesses and so increase primary school enrolment, because children will not miss as much as used to be. Also it will increase the productivity among adults, it will provide more safety for women and also reduce the pollution of water resources.
Fortunately it is increasing, in only 14 years more than 1 billion people have received access to sanitation. Sanitation and wastewater commitments have effectively tripled since 1990 and after that nearly doubled since 2002.
Less than half of the Latin American countries are on track to double the rate of sanitation provision.
Poor sanitation is responsible for at least 9 billion in losses per year in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam combined.
Sanitation is a neglected aspect of development in countries, the money going to this is minor. If you look to the economic impacts of poor sanitation, and the potential gains from improved sanitation, than the investments in sanitation should be very helpful for everyone
The most disastrous impact of poor sanitation is an increased risk of infectious diseases and premature death, declaring for more than 4.8 billion annually.
Poor sanitation also contributes enormously to water pollution, adding to the costs of safe freshwater for homes, and increasing the production of fish in lakes and rivers.
Garbage and streets
Garbage is a big problem for the communities in Manila. In the past years, "Smokey Mountain," once a smoking mountain of garbage, which was Manila's monument to one of the city's most continuously problems; trash. But through years of effort, Smokey Mountain has been increased to a big hill.
Still the problem goes on: What to do with the amount of garbage produced by more than 10 million residents of Manila every.
In Dagat-Dagatan, Navotas, a group of women has taken the matter, of the community's garbage, into their own hands through the Metropolitan Environmental Improvement Program (MEIP). The MEIP is a regional program for Asia with the costs provided by the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank as collaboration partner.
Through the funding received by the local Dagat-Dagatan Polymedic Medical Foundation, the women of the Dagat-Dagatan community established a community centre; the Zero Kalat sa Kaunlaran (Zero Waste for Progress), which is turning the garbage of their neighbourhoods into cash and opportunity.
To eliminate the extausion of diseases, the foundation launched a program within the community to spread ecological waste management, set up a recycling system and a redemption centre, and continue with the maintenance of sanitation and hygiene in every household.
The women, who are called volunteers but are actually members of a co-op. They first collect all the garbage, then sort it out at the community centre, and recycle almost all of it. Their recycling efforts take many forms. Some of the refuse is used in woven baskets and handbags, which the women sell for profit. But also some is sold to scrap metal dealers and to companies that recycle plastics and corrugated cardboard.
The effort is actually more than a business for these women. They come together in the morning and exercise before starting the work of that day. They chat as they wash the water bottles and chat when they are on their way to the recycler. They have planted flowers and grass around the community and next year they will begin composting the scraps and clippings they collect to produce another marketable product. A women had admitted that this centre has changed her life.
"I was fascinated to see how the women managed to make money out of what people throw away," said Mats Karlsson, World Bank vice president for External Affairs and UN Affairs, who was visiting the women at the redemption centre.
Karlsson, who was in the Philippines for the current Manila Social Forum, took some time visiting nearby projects. "I was especially impressed by their motto: 'Kung hindi tayo, sino?' which means in english, 'If not us, then who?'"
Drinking water
In the Philippines, bottled water has established a major foothold. In some places, piped-water systems are lacking; in others, people are uncertain about biological contaminants, disinfection by-products from the chlorination process, taste, and odor.
Even in the capital Manila, only about 75% of the population receives piped water from the municipal authority. Outside Manila even fewer people have access to clean water distribution. In both locations, these families must find alternate water sources if they are to avoid cholera epidemics and other health problems caused by the water that is available in their neighborhoods.
A solution has appeared in the thousands of water refilling stations that is now happening in the Philippine landscape. These shops began as privately-run community sources, where consumers would bring containers and fill them for a per-gallon fee that is a small fraction of commercially bottled water's cost. Demand is such that most stores now offer home delivery for regular customers.
Most shops produce between 3,000 and 12,000 liters of water per day. Typically, the supply comes from the pipes of municipal concessionaires. Entrepreneurs invest in treatment equipment and further purify their product before sale. Other shops are likely supplied by unauthorized or illegal deep well diggings. A proliferation of these private sources could have detrimental effects on groundwater reserves and subject them to contamination.
The government has accepted private water shops as a necessary weapon in the fight against waterborne disease and regulates their quality control practices and final product as much as possible. However, given the large number of shops, it is difficult to continuously monitor the entire industry.
Though many in the Philippines benefit from the availability of water shops, the system does not address the long-term water delivery and sanitation infrastructure improvements necessary to provide reliable water to all.
Most people don't live near the source of their water. Distribution systems move water from a source and deliver it to the people who use it. Different distribution systems are used depending on the needs of the people and the amount of infrastructure available. All systems run the risk of contaminating water when not handled properly. Likewise, each system has a cost involved with bringing safe, reliable drinking water to people.
Household Service
In most larger cities of the world, water is pumped from a natural source, treated in a water treatment plant, stored for use in water storage tanks and piped directly into the household.
The cost of household service is usually paid by consumers, not only for the delivery and treatment of this water, but also for the upkeep of this system.
If the infrastructure is not maintained, household service can become unreliable and potentially unsafe.
Water Supply by Vehicle
In areas where household plumbing is unreliable or non-existent, other distribution systems have developed. In the Mexico City area, more than 2 million people live beyond the reach of piped distribution systems. For these people, water trucks transport water from treated sources to community distribution points or directly to a home or residence. Water trucks may also be used to combat a temporary water crises caused by war or natural disaster.
Bottled Water and Water Refilling Stations
Bottled water or water refilling stations are used in many areas where people have no access to safe water. In the Philippines, purified water is sold at water refilling stations throughout the country. At these stations, consumers may bring their own containers to carry the water away. The poor are the ones most dependent on vehicle delivery, bottled water, or water refilling stations. Unfortunately, the poor also pay the highest prices for all of the water that must be delivered by such methods.
Central Community Source
In rural areas, where little to no household infrastructure exists, communities dig wells and boreholes and pump groundwater to a central location within the community.
From these centralized community sources, consumers collect the water themselves and bring it to their homes for treatment and use. In rural Niger, hand pumps and solar pumps were installed by international aid organizations at central locations in villages. These pumps provide easier access to clean water without having to haul water up from traditional wells. These water stations are used by the community and, in many cases, maintained by the community.
Individual Water Transport
Many people, especially in rural areas of developing countries, walk to a river, lake, or other water source and put their water in containers. This water is brought back home and requires treatment before use. In relation to other methods, this distribution system is the least technologically complex. But it does involves opportunity costs. Water gatherers, primarily women and children, may spend hours each day engaged in this basic chore. The responsibility leaves them little time for schooling, growing food, earning income, or other initiatives that could help to break the cycle of poverty. Regardless of location, all distribution systems have some form of infrastructure that must be maintained to keep water safe.
And while all distribution systems involve costs, some costs can be more expensive than others.
STI's
What is a STI?
STI is the abbreviation of sexually transmitted infection. STI's are contagious, and it is possible an infected person has not noticed yet before passing the infection on to its sexual partner without noticing. Luckily, serious consequences can be prevented when the victim is treated in time. Some examples of STI's are HIV (the virus that can cause AIDS), chlamydia, genital warts, genital herpes, gonorrhoea, hepatitis B, and syphilis.
STI's can be transmitted through infected sperm and vaginal fluid. Second, people can also get an STI through infected blood, for example due to unhygienic tattooing and piercing, unhygienic needles etc. with using drugs, and babies can be infected during the pregnancy or birth. Third, STI's can be transmitted due to the contact between mucous membranes (in the rectum, penis, vagina, and mouth). And last, and probably best known, unprotected sex is dangerous because of an easy transmission of STI's.
There are some myths about the transmission of STI's. So let's get rid of them forever. STI's cannot be transmitted through drinking out of another person's cup, someone's cough, insect bites, a dirty toilet seat, and in a swimming pool.
HIV/AIDS
Since the start of 2009 every month approximately 60 Filipinos are diagnosed as an HIV - positive. But this rose sharply to 126 cases in December. If this will not stop, the number will increase rapidly. And in three years the number of people in the Philippines with HIV/AIDS will be 30,000.
In January 2010 143 people were diagnosed with HIV in the Philippines. This was the highest number reported since the disease first appeared in the country, in 1984. Most of the cases in January were males, who were infected by sexual contact with men. Since 1984 the Philippines has had 4,424 cases of HIV reported, of these cases 832 have been developed into full-blown AIDS and 314 deaths had been reported.
Also among children the HIV infection is increasing as never before. The infection among 15-24 year old Filipinos has increased with five times, from 41 in 2007 to 218.
