| | | Members of Wellbeing Foundation Africa speaking about their Clean Hands for All initiative © Wellbeing Foundation Africa |
|
| Otun Adewale recounts the story of two doctors in a private hospital in Abuja, Nigeria. One who washes his hands after he is with a patient, the other who does not. One who contracts Covid-19 and one who does not.
Adewale is a senior medical officer in maternal and child health. Since the beginning of the year, the doctor has been working with Wellbeing Foundation Africa (WBFA), an organization that focuses on women’s and children’s health in Nigeria through education, advocacy, and better care. For the past few months, Adewale and the team at WBFA have had a new mission: breaking the transmission of Covid-19 by improving water, sanitation, and hygiene practices. |
|
The volume of Covid-19 news can be overwhelming. We've started a live blog, updated throughout the day, to help you sort through it. It's a library for how water, sanitation, and hygiene connect to the pandemic, both in the US and globally.
Featured Covid-19 + water coverage from this week include: In Midst of Pandemic, United Nations to Accelerate Water and Sanitation Goals Early IFRC Funding in Bangladesh to Reduce Impact of Flood and COVID-19 New WHO and UNICEF Report Highlights Importance of WASH Illinois Regulators Reach Utility Payments Agreement |
|
The United Nations Children’s Fund last week shipped 90 tons of medicine, water, and sanitation supplies to Venezuela, the third such shipment to the country since the coronavirus crisis began.
The aid provided by UNICEF and other agencies is welcomed, but quite small compared to Venezuela’s wider, and worsening, humanitarian crisis.
Deteriorating conditions have led to chronic shortages of food, medicine, and running water, and the downward spiral is continuing amid the Covid-19 pandemic. |
|
What's Up With Water - June 29, 2020
For the news you need to start the week, tune into “What’s Up With Water” fresh on Monday’s on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and SoundCloud.
This week's episode features coverage on the United States, where the chemical company Bayer announced settlements in lawsuits alleging that its weed killers caused damage to humans and the environment.
Additional U.S. coverage looks at Michigan, where an Ingham County Circuit Court judge granted the state’s request to temporarily close an oil pipeline in the Great Lakes.
And for science news, researchers at Columbia University published a study on a neglected topic: drinking water contamination in jails.
Finally, this week's featured Circle of Blue story continues our reporting on on small water systems facing big money problems. You can listen to the latest edition of What's Up With Water, as well as all past editions, by downloading the podcasts on iTunes, following Circle of Blue on Spotify, following on iHeart Radio, and subscribing on SoundCloud. |
|
| From Circle of Blue's Archives: |
|
| | | Pharmacist Madani Coulibaly helps Dr. Martin Koné, health director, to clean equipment that has been used to treat a patient at Talo Health Centre, in the municipality of Falo, Mali. Photo © WaterAid/Basile Ouedraogo |
|
| The front lines in the battle to limit damage from the new coronavirus are expanding.
Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, emerged in China and then blossomed in comparatively wealthy countries like Italy, South Korea, and the United States.
Now, the virus is spreading in poorer regions — in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and parts of Latin America — where essential defensive measures against infectious disease are often missing.
Healthcare facilities in low- and middle-income countries are a potential weak link in the fight against Covid-19, health experts say. Hospitals and clinics in countries like Nepal and Tanzania often lack handwashing stations, proper waste disposal, hygienic equipment, and even running water. |
|
|
|
