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Loughborough University Institutional Repository Sustainability of rural sanitation in Venezuela
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Holmes, David |
| Copyright Year | 1997 |
| Abstract | TODAY, SANITARY CONDITIONS in rural Venezuela are typical of those to be found in most developing countries in the tropics. Major infectious diseases, such as malaria, hepatitis, river blindness, leishmaniasis, tuberculosis, Chagas, and cholera, are all present, and in some cases on the increase. The majority of the population lacks access to clean drinking water and adequate facilities for excrement disposal contributing to high morbidity rates due to parasitic diseases. Ironically, in the two or three decades following WW II, a veritable revolution in rural sanitation was achieved under the direction of Dr. Arnaldo Gabaldon (1909-90), the internationallyknown physician and academic, who created and led an exemplary anti-malaria and rural sanitation program which became a model for public health administrators all over the world. Under Gabaldon's tutelage, Venezuela became the first tropical country to apply DDT for malaria control on a massive scale. A newly created army of professional sanitary inspectors and hygienist fanned out, often on mule back or in dug-out canoes, to bring a message of hope and a kit bag of the latest public health measures to the remotest corners of the country. Initial results were rapid and dramatic. The mortality rate from malaria dropped from more than 100 per 100,000 population to less than 10 within a decade. This same figure was reduced to 0.5 by 1955 (Ramirez, 1987). The combination of this technological breakthrough and Gabaldon's administrative and organizational genius enabled the country to practically eradicate malaria by the 1960's. The same spray that killed mosquitos also killed flies thereby reducing the transmission of intestinal parasites. The sanitary engineers soon followed to supervise the construction of latrines, sewers, water supply systems and even low-cost, rural houses. The net result of these and other measures was to reduce the crude death rate from 10.2 per thousand in 1950 to 5.5 in 1980. This, coupled with a rise in the birth rate, triggered a demographic explosion which caused the annual average intercensal growth rate to rise from 1.7% in 1936 to a peak of 4% in 1961, one of the highest in the world. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/28609/1/Holmes.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://wedc.lboro.ac.uk/resources/conference/21/Holmes.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
