Dear Reader,
We are happy to present you the next volume of our WHOCC Newsletter and would like to give our special thanks to the authors who made highly interesting contributions to this Newsletter. In the current issue, we invited Venera Djudemisheva of the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project to present an actual overview on aspects of Water and Health in Kyrgyzstan. Despite huge amounts of water resources in terms of ground water reservoirs, rivers and glaciers, the quality of water actually used for drinking and irrigation is still unsatisfactory in the country.
Margriet Samwel and Sascha Gabizon from Women in Europe for a Common Future present experiences with the use and perception of new sanitation concepts in schools of Romania and the Ukraine. Again in Romania, many children are exposed to Methemoglobinaemia and show the so-called “blue baby syndrome”. Anca Tudor and Mihaela Vasilescu from the Institute of Public Health in Bucharest have investigated the impact of nitrates and microbiological substances in well water with respect to the “blue baby syndrome”.
Tan Qinwen from the Environmental Monitoring Centre of Chengdu City, China reports about sanitation and drinking water aspects in rural areas around Chengdu City. Besides an extension of centralised water supply pipe networks to rural plains and hilly regions, the investigation points out that technical improvements – amongst others – are urgently needed for all small scale water supply projects in rural areas.
This issue will be completed by a short report from Dr Alexander Vereschagin, Chief Physician of the Federal Centre of Hygiene & Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, Moscow, about the Workshop on Water Safety Plans, which took place from 4 - 5 December 2007 in Moscow, Russian Federation. The Workshop was held within the framework of the Biennial Collaborative Agreement (BCA) between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russian Federation.
We thank our contributors and our readership for their interest and encourage you to contribute to one of the future issues of ‘Water & Risk’.
Thomas Kistemann
Water and Health in Kyrgyzstan
Sustainable School Sanitation for Better Child Health in the EECCA and in the new EU Member States
The Evaluation of Acute Infantile Methemoglobinaemia Cases Generated by Well Water in Romania
The Investigation of Sanitation and Drinking Water in Rural Areas around Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, China
Workshop on Water Safety Plans (WSPs) 4 -5 December, 2007, Moscow, Russian Federation
WHO CC Newsletter No. 13: high (pdf, 11 MB) / low (pdf, 1.5 MB)