Transcript
SIALE 'AKAU'OLA: Clearly when an outbreak happens it means there is a gap in terms of hygiene in terms of preparation of food, clean water supply and things like that. It's really the basic hygiene in Tonga that's the basic course of all these outbreaks. You have a carrier visiting another village and if the homes where he visits do not have the basic hygiene hand washing and keeping away flies and things like that. Unfortunately, we see this kind of thing coming up now and again. So it's really a reflection of the standard of hygiene and food preparation, hand washing, the availability of soap, things like that. Those are the issues that these outbreaks are raising, so we focus a lot of raising awareness of the public telling people to wash their hands after they've used the bathroom and things like that.
KORO VAKA'UTA: Because of this I understand that, at least for a month there has been a ban placed on one village anyway. What do you hope to achieve with that?
SA: The main reason for the ban is really to highlight the importance of sanitation. It raises people's awareness they ask questions and we provide communication and health promotion activities so it's like an incentive to keep people aware that there is an issue happening within their environment. Unfortunately, we have problems in Tonga about gathering, there's a group of people gathering and there are funerals, there are marriages and almost everybody involved in preparing food, so unless we are strict in preventing that thing from happening there's a chance of propagation Typhoid to other people.
KV: You mentioned, doctor, that these cases kind of crop up once in a while intermittently, whatever it may be. Is the message getting across? Is it improving? Or is it a case of maybe more, or better services with running water, how do you address that most?
SA: It's an ongoing problem because it comes down to the ability and capacity of the public for good sanitation facilities within their homes. There are programmes, we also discuss with developments partners to assist some of these vulnerable areas [and] develop these sanitation facilities. We monitor water supply and, thankfully, most people have access to clean water, it's really the toilet facilities, those are the ones that we are concerned about and again it comes down to the ability of individual homes to have their own hygienic toilet facilities. Unfortunately, of course it also comes down to how some people priorities their spending because some homes that have a new car, but they don't have hygienic toilet facilities. So we try to educate them with to put the priorities where they should be.
