Surface water that people are used to drinking is likely to be contaminated not only by dead bodies and livestock carcasses, but also human and animal waste spread by floodwaters and overflowing latrines.
Heavy rains, overflowing latrines and a ceaseless influx of sick and hungry people have conspired to create an epidemiological disaster at the Jamam refugee camp, with death rates now nearly twice the emergency level, said the aid group Doctors Without Borders.
The smell of overflowing latrines lingered in the nose.
Henry and three other celebs were dropped into Kibera, a vast shantytown that forms part of Nairobi, to earn a living in various menial jobs, including shovelling excrement from overflowing public latrines.
"For example, we mobilized all the youths for the camp-wide hygiene campaign to help deal with overflowing community latrines due to the recent heavy rain.
The analysis shows that latrine overflow was associated with a higher prevalence of diarrhea (PD = 0.19 95% CI = 0.02, 0.36).
It is suggested that low cost interventions to prevent latrine overflow may reduce the incidence of diarrheal disease, even in the presence of other risk factors.
Latrine overflow, however, was associated with an increased prevalence of diarrhea during the same two week period [adjusted prevalence difference and 95% CI: 0.19 (0.36, 0.36)].
Tents collapse, latrines overflow, firewood gets soggy, food goes uncooked and diseases like malaria and the flu flourish.
Some 36,000 families in Anju do not have access to clean water; wells are contaminated due to overflow of pit latrines and open drainage, raising the risk of a diarrhea outbreak, the report said.
