Aug 24, 2010 – The Burundian Minister of Health, Dr. Emmanuel Gikoro, Monday lamented that the absence of a national hygiene and sanitation policy was responsible for 80 percent of deaths in the country.
Gikoro, speaking at the opening of a three-day national forum on a new and more coherent hygiene and sanitation policy, noted that the evolution of killer diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea and respiratory complications came about through the absence of national hygiene and sanitation policy.
‘At the socio-economic level, diseases related to poor basic hygiene still cause huge financial looses to households and the state, which needs to pay or subsidize healthcare,’ he said.
