Brazilian State will pay the sewer connection for low-income families

The state government of Sao Paulo, Brazil, will pay sewer connection for families with income of up to three minimum wages. It is estimated that 192 000 connections will be paid, benefiting about 800 000 people. Will be invested R $ 349.5 million over eight years.

The program will pay for the works within the property, such as labor and material, to make the connection.The goal is to encourage low-income families to connect their homes to the sewer system, because when there is no domestic connection to sewage they pour in fresh water bodies causing damage to the environment and health of the population.

The program is coordinated by the Secretary of Sanitation and Water Resources of the State, Edson Giriboni.

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Guilherme Hungria

Haiti: cholera victims demand UN compensation

The United Nations has been hit with a demand for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from Haitian cholera victims.

The Boston, USA-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) filed the demand on behalf of some 5,000 victims.

IJDH is demanding US$ 50,000 in compensation for each sick person and US$ 100,000  for each death. In addition, it wants a public apology and an adequate nationwide response – including medical care and clean water and sanitation infrastructure.

Colombia: Indigenous WAYUU women fight for fresh water

This documentary looks at one of Colombia’s largest indigenous groups, Wayuu, and their struggle for fresh water. Soon their water will be siphoned from their lands through new pipes to a nearby town, where the population is not indigenous. Due to a changing climate, water has become even scarcer in their community. One extraordinary woman fights for her community’s very survival.

Born Latin American Confederation for Community Organization in Water and Sanitation

As part of the Latin American Management II Community Water and Sanitation, held from 13 to 15 September in Cusco, Peru with the presence of representatives of community associations in 14 countries in Latin America, including members of FANMex Environmental Studies Group BC and Keepers of the Volcanoes and after a year of discussions from the meeting in Samaipata, the Latin American Confederation of Community Organizations for Water and Sanitation Services (OCSAS) was born.

Spanish Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation launches new web site

The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID, has launched a new website (in Spanish only) for its Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation, a financing instrument that supports water and sanitation initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Launched on 7 June 2011, it provides detailed information about the fund and is set to host a list of upcoming tenders carried out by Spain’s partner organisations and countries. The website also contains eligibility criteria and application instructions.

The Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation began operating in 2008 with a US$ 1.5 billion budget. The launch of the website is line with the Spanish government’s commitment to make the fund’s operation more transparent, AECID explains in a news release.

Web site: www.fondodelagua.aecid.es

Source: Ivy Mungcal, Devex.com, 08 Jun 2011

Uruguay: legislation approved to make sewerage connections compulsory

All households in Uruguay must now have a  sewerage connection. Uruguay’s House of Representatives passed a bill making sewerage connections compulsory on 5 July 2011.

The new bill includes provisions to provide subsidies and grants to those who cannot afford a connection, as well as fines for those who fail to comply with the new law.

In the capital Montevideo, the local government will administer the new law, while state water utility OSE will be responsible for the rest of the country.

While improved rural sanitation coverage was estimated to be 99% in 2008 (WHO/UNICEF, 2010), some 50,000 households are still not connected to a sewerage network. In some areas only 15% of households have sewerage connections.

Source: La Republica [in Spanish], 05 Jul 2011

Study suggests UN force brought cholera to Haiti

Evidence “strongly suggests” that a United Nations peacekeeping mission brought a cholera strain to Haiti that has killed thousands of people, a study by a team of epidemiologists and physicians says.

The study is the strongest argument yet that newly-arrived Nepalese peacekeepers at a base near the town of Mirebalais brought with them the cholera, which spread through the waterways of the Artibonite region.

The disease has killed more than 5,500 people and sickened more than 363,000 others since it was discovered in October 2010, according to the Haitian government.

“Our findings strongly suggest that contamination of the Artibonite (river) and 1 of its tributaries downstream from a military camp triggered the epidemic,” said the report in the July 2011 issue of the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

In an email to Associate Press (AP), U.N. mission spokeswoman Sylvie Van Den Wildenberg didn’t comment on the findings of the journal article, referring only to a study released in May by a U.N.-appointed panel.

The article published in the CDC journal comes as health workers in Haiti wrestle with a spike in the number of cholera cases brought on by several weeks of rainfall. The aid group Oxfam said earlier this month that its workers were treating more than 300 new cases a day, more than three times what they saw when the disease peaked in the fall.

The CDC journal article comes as health workers in Haiti wrestle with a spike in the number of cholera cases brought on by several weeks of rainfall. Oxfam said earlier that its workers were treating more than 300 new cases a day, more than three times what they saw when the disease peaked in the fall of 2010.

The new study argues it is important for scientists to determine the origin of cholera outbreaks and how they spread in order to eliminate “accidentally imported disease.” Figuring out the source of a cholera epidemic would help health workers better treat and prevent cholera by minimizing the “distrust associated with the widespread suspicions of a cover-up of a deliberate importation of cholera.”

Read the full article
Piarroux, R. [et al.] (2011). Understanding the cholera epidemic, Haiti. Emerging infectious diseases ; vol. 17, no. 7 ; p. 1161-1167. DOI:10.3201/eid1707.110059

Source: Jonathan M. Katz, AP, 29 Jun 2011

Dominican Republic: Tourism sector takes strict measures against cholera, top hotelier says

Hotels and Tourism Association (Asonahores) spokesman Arturo Villanueva said in Santo Domingo last Sunday 29 May that his sector has adopted all the necessary control measures of international standards to prevent cholera in the country’s tourism regions and that they are on high alert.

Villanueva said the tourism sector is calm because it’s a wide ranging and efficient operation, including a prevention program in the handling of foods to newspaper Hoy in an interview.

Haiti: UN panel reports on source of cholera outbreak

The cholera outbreak that has so far killed 4,888 people in Haiti was caused by a strain “very similar but not identical” to current South Asian strains, a U.N. independent panel of experts said. The source of the outbreak was due to contamination of the Meye Tributary of the Artibonite River, used by tens of thousands of people for washing, bathing, and drinking.

Many people in Haiti blamed the epidemic on U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal, who had been accused of poor sanitation at their base near Mirebalais, the town where the epidemic first began. In November 2010, this lead to violent protests against the UN peacekeeping forces. Others believed that the outbreak was linked to voodoo. More than 50 voodoo followers have been killed since the outbreak of cholera following accusations that they spread the disease with occult power. However, U.N. panel declined to point the finger at any single group for the outbreak, saying it was the result of a “confluence of circumstances”.

“The introduction of this cholera strain as a result of environmental contamination with faeces could not have been the source of such an outbreak without simultaneous water and sanitation and health-care system deficiencies,” the report concludes.

The UN panel of experts provides several recommendations to the U.N. and the Haitian government including:

• UN staff and other relief workers travelling from cholera-endemic areas should either receive a prophylactic dose of appropriate antibiotics before departure or be screened for cholera strains
• UN peacekeeping missions operating in areas with cholera outbreaks should ensure that staff be immunized with oral vaccines, receive prophylactic antibiotics, or both,
• the UN should install and supervise their own on-site sanitation systems that inactivate pathogens before disposal
• the Haitian Government and the UN should prioritise investing in piped, treated drinking water supplies and better sanitation throughout the country; and until this can be put in place, they should promote household water treatment, hand washing with soap, and the safe disposal of faecal waste.

Read the full report of the UN Independent Panel of Experts on the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti.

According to estimates from the Health and WASH Clusters, US$ 39.38 million is still neededto respond to essential needs of the cholera response in the areas of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and health. This unfunded requirement is part of the general US$ 175 million cholera appeal which is so far 48 per cent funded, according to the latest UN Humanitarian Bulletin for Haiti.

Source: UN News Centre, 04 May 2011 ; AP / New York Times, 04 May 2011 ; Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post, 05 May 2011 ;   Reliefweb, 07 May 2011 ; Rory Carroll, Guardian, 18 Nov 2010

Latin American development bank CAF and PAHO sign water and sanitation agreement

CAF – Latin American development bank – and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) have agreed to expand their cooperation on access to water, sanitation and health in the region. The agreement, signed on April 1st, 2011, was an amendment to an earlier Framework Agreement on Technical Cooperation signed on January 3rd, 2011.

CAF has been active in the sector for over 20 years and in the last five years it has approved about US$ 1.80 billion for the water sector. Most recently CAF approved US$ 12 million for water and sanitation projects in five districts of Bolivian city El Alto in La Paz department.

The CAF president Enrique García said:

“the importance of this signing is that we are joining forces with the world’s oldest public health organization which is actively working in the region. The resulting synergy will strengthen the mechanisms required for disease prevention.”

Related web sites:

• CAF – Integrated Water Program
• PAHO – Water and Sanitation | Drinking Water

Source: CAF, 05 Apr 2011 ; BNamericas.com [subscription site], 13 Apr 2011 ; PAHO [in Spanish], 02 Apr 2011