Environmental Health: Abia Launches WASH Programme

A foreign-based public health expert, Ann-Chioma Udochukwu, has scored Abia State government high on environmental health profile, stressing its sustenance.

Udochukwu spoke to LEADERSHIP as the government launched the State Integrated Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Accelerated Programme in Umuahia, the state capital.

„I ‚m not only impressed with the programme but also want to commend the government for the recent posting of 1,000 environmental health officers across the state.

„And this is a remarkable deviation from what was obtained in the major streets of the capital and Aba three years ago when I was in the country,“ she said

She underscored the need for the government to extend the programme to Ohafia and inculcate it in both primary and secondary schools „for wider impact.“

At the event held at Okigwe Park, Umuahia, Governor Alex Otti said nine others had reached advanced stages of completion.

‎He said the government cannot be campaigning for sanitation and forbidding open defecation without providing a better alternative

“This is a great project because you cannot talk about sanitation, you cannot forbid open defecation, if you don‘t provide a place where people can use. This is significant, not because we have not seen this kind before, but because of what we are trying to achieve,“ the governor said.

Earlier, the commissioner for Power and Public Utilities, Ikechukwu Monday, said such facilities were being built across the state.