Here in China, more than 50% of the population lives in rural areas, often far away from urban centers, where poor sanitation can often pose a thorny public health challenge. Preventing fecal pathogens from getting into clean water sources is a key element for improving sanitation.
This year the World Health Organization released Sanitation and Hygiene in East Asia, which reports an increasingly healthy China in terms of excreta-related diseases. For example, in 2008, China’s annual incidence rate of diarrheal disease had dropped to 154 cases per 1,000 people, a rate lower than all East Asian countries except Japan and South Korea. But there is still much room for improvement.
In China’s rural areas, outdoor septic tank toilets are critical to improving access to sanitation. According to Chinese government statistics, 2.1 million households in Yunnan Province have biogas toilets (see my last Speaking of Medicine post for an explanation of how these units operate). This past month I traveled to Gongzhuo Village (公桌村) in Yuanmou County (元谟县), a three and a half hour bus ride north of Yunnan’s capital city, Kunming, to see these toilets.
Read the article : http://blogs.plos.org/speakingofmedicine/2010/11/09/biogas-toilets-in-a-chinese-village/
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