Five villages in Na Tau commune of the northwestern province of Dien
Bien have hygienic toilets meeting the health ministry’s standards on
sanitation.
Hong Liu 1, Na Tau 1, Na Luong 2, Na Luong 3 and
Co Dua have become the first nationwide to be acknowledged by the
ministry for building toilets for households.
A ceremony was held on June 29 to mark this event.
Na Tau commune is one of the first localities in the country to pilot
the community-based construction of clean toilets launched by the
ministry in 2009.
The five-year-old project has helped increase local awareness of personal hygiene and environmental sanitation.
As of May, more than 96 percent of households had toilets. The rate
of clean toilets surged to 75 percent from a mere 2.6 percent in 2009.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), over
45 percent of rural families in Vietnam either defecate in the open or
use unhygienic toilets. Poor sanitation is blamed for diarrhea and
pneumonia which are the main causes of dealth among children under five.-VNA