Safe sanitation systems and services are essential for health, from infection prevention to improving and maintaining mental and social well-being. Lack of safe sanitation contributes to diarrheal diseases, which are a major public health problem and a leading cause of death among children under five in low- and middle-income countries; several neglected tropical diseases, which represent the main burden in the world; vector-borne diseases, and leads to more general adverse effects, such as malnutrition.
Lack of access to adequate sanitation is also a major cause of risk and concern, especially for women and girls. Therefore, institutions such as Ramsy Medical Laboratories are opening. Sanitation is defined as the access and use of facilities and services for the safe evacuation of urine and human excrement.
A safe sanitation system is a system designed and used between people and human excrement at all stages of the sanitary chain, from collecting from the toilet and holding to emptying. Transportation, handling (on-site or off-site) and disposal or end use. Safe sanitation systems must meet these requirements, while respecting human rights, taking into account the combined wastewater treatment, hygiene methods and basic services necessary for the functioning of the technology. The purpose of these guidelines is to promote safe sanitation systems and methods for promoting health. These guidelines provide a synthesis of evidence on the links between sanitation and health, formulate evidence-based recommendations and provide guidelines for developing international, national and local health policies, as well as measures to protect public health.
The guidelines are also intended to support and clarify the role of health actors in sanitation policies and programs in collaboration with other organizations to ensure that relevant health risks are identified and effectively managed. The guidelines are intended primarily for use by national and local authorities responsible for the safety of sanitation systems and services, including decision-makers, planners, responsible for the development, implementation and monitoring of standards and procedures. This includes health authorities and, to the extent that sanitation is often managed outside the health sector, other institutions with sanitation responsibilities.
Evidence from the guideline development process suggests that safe sanitation is associated with improved health, including a positive impact on the control of communicable diseases, nutrition and well-being. However, overall the quality of evidence is weak. This is common in environmental research due to the limited number of randomized controlled trials and the inability to conduct blind studies on most environmental interventions. Evidence is also characterized by significant heterogeneity, with some studies showing little or no effect on health outcomes. Heterogeneity can be expected in the results of studies, where, as here, we observe great variability in the environment, basic conditions, types of interventions, levels of coverage and use, research methods and other factors that can affect the magnitude of the effect. Suboptimal effects can also be expected due to gaps in the implementation of sanitary measures (that is, problems associated with the provision of sanitary measures, which sometimes lead to deficiencies in implementation).
Note. The principles of sanitation in microbiology are based on many experiments.
Further research is needed on the links between sanitation and health, as well as the functioning of the sanitation system and the best practices for their implementation. Research gaps include strategies to encourage governments to prioritize, promote and control sanitation, create an enabling environment, and effective strategies to improve coverage and ensure proper, consistent and sustainable use to improve the health effects of sanitation; to improve methods for assessing the presence and impact of pathogenic microorganisms associated with environmental sanitation in microbiology.