By NJIRAINI MUCHIRA

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The majority of East Africans still suffer inadequate sanitation facilities, and use open pit latrines that often smell, attract flies and can be unsafe for children.

The region is also grappling with the problem of open defecation and “flying toilets” in densely populated slums in major cities.

In a study by Lixil Corporation, Oxford Economics and Water Aid, lack of proper sanitation costs the global economy a staggering over $220 billion with the mortality rate accounting for $122.8 billion, medical treatment $56.6 billion, lost productivity $16.5 billion and time spent finding a toilet $27 billion.

Of the total $220 billion cost, Africa accounted for about $19.3 billion, of which about 75 per cent came from deaths related to sanitation.

Lixil, a Japanese manufacturer of building materials and housing equipment, contends there is an urgent need to improve sanitation in East Africa in order to reduce deaths and illnesses associated with poor hygiene.

In Kenya alone, the problem costs the economy over $320 million annually, with nearly 20,000 Kenyans, including more than 17,000 children under the age of five, dying every year from diarrhoeal diseases directly attributed to poor water, sanitation and hygiene.

Safe toilet

Now Lixil has opened a plant in Kenya that will manufacture a product dubbed SATO (safe toilet), which will offer poor households in rural and peri-urban areas the benefit of safe, smell-free, affordable and durable toilet solutions and improving dignity, health and the environment.

The safe toilet, which is already being used by over six million people in Africa and Asia, is a prefabricated product designed to automatically seal open pit latrines with a self-sealing trap doors that close quickly and seal tightly to eliminate odour and passage of disease carrying insects.

Lixil is targeting access to improved sanitation and hygiene for a 100 million people globally with the safe toilet that is already being sold in 14 countries at between $5 and $10 a piece.

Research has shown that high cost is among the top factors preventing households from benefiting from improved sanitation in a region where over 40 per cent of the population live below the poverty line.

“Producing SATO toilets locally keeps costs down and enables broader distribution,” said Jason Cardosi, SATO Africa general manager.

Lixil reckons that addressing sanitation problems is critical considering two-thirds of the world’s population is projected to be living in cities by 2030, many in informal settlements with limited water and sanitation facilities.