Health Promoters Stop Cholera
Working together for change
The first thing the village health educators did was teach people how cholera
and other diseases that cause diarrhea can spread (see pages 47 to 54). Then
they helped each household and each village make sure its water supply was
clean (see pages 92 to 99). They also taught people how to stop dehydration,
the main cause of death from diarrhea, by making a rehydration drink of sugar
and salt in boiled water and giving it to children and anyone else who had
diarrhea (see page 53). They taught people in schools, churches, community
centers, and public gathering places to prevent cholera by washing their hands
and by building and using safe toilets. After a few weeks, the cholera had
nearly disappeared.
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But the health promoters knew they had more work to do to make sure cholera
would not strike again.
With help from local engineers, people came together to build piped
water systems, to improve pit toilets in every village, and to make sure every
household had enough water for bathing. The villagers themselves did the work,
and learned how to clean and maintain the water systems and toilets. They
also made sure animals were fenced in (to keep animal wastes out of the water
supply) and that water containers were covered to prevent disease-carrying
mosquitoes from breeding.
As this work went on, people from other villages joined in. Starting with
22 villages, Salud para el Pueblo reached 100 villages not long after it began.
Soon there was no cholera in the entire region, and other illnesses had been
reduced as well.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012