Poor hygiene “can cause serious diseases”

Only 72 percent of the Romanian population has access to the sanitation network and therefore Romanian people are exposed to viruses and microbes.

In 1990, about 71 percent of the Romanian people had access to the sanitation services. The percentage has increased by 1 percent in the last 20 years, according to the statistics of the Institute of Public Health of Bucharest presented in a press release issued on Wednesday by Mediafax.

The specialists warn about the diseases caused by the lack of hygiene in Romania. Three out of ten Romanians are exposed all the time to microbes and viruses that can cause serious diseases, sometimes even lethal.

The cause is, firstly, the lack of access to the sanitation network, and therefore the lack of appropriate hygiene: 28 percent of the Romanian population currently does not have access to the sanitation network.

One of the most serious diseases caused by the lack of hygienic conditions is the infectious diarrhoea, disease that globally kills more children than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles together.

The infectious diarrhoea kills 1.4 millions of children annually, which means that daily there are 4 000 children dying because of the infectious diarrhoea or that every 20 seconds a child dies because of this disease.

In Romania, the mortality caused by the infectious diarrhoea is four times bigger than in Bulgaria and two times bigger than in Hungary.

“Since setting an example is the most efficient education, it is important to be aware of how important the personal hygiene is, as well as the disinfection of our house or of our environment. This way we contribute both to our own health and that of those around us”, said Corina Zugravu, hygiene and alimentation MD at the Institute of Public Health of Bucharest.

The serious diseases that the poor hygiene can cause are most of the times hard to cure and the treatment is very costly.

The Romanian women live on average 77 years, 5 years less than the European average, namely 82 years.

For men, the average life expectancy is 69 years compared to the European average of 76 years, according to the European Commission.

Translated by: Camelia-Aura Barbu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University