Everyone Poops

While many may be shocked and taken aback by this blog post title, but let me remind you of two things 1) this is the title of a very popular children's book 2) being in nursing school you are constantly surround with all kinds of bodily things and talking about things like bowel movements and emesis over lunch becomes the norm.

The morning kicked off with all things sanitation.  While there are four major options in emergency situations, the best seems to be the VIP aka the Ventilated Improvement Pit.

Despite what we have heard on the news and read in all the glossy NGO booklets one of the best ways to decrease oral fecal disease transmission is not to provide lots of clean drinking water.  MIND BLOWING I know!!  Studies have shown that more water is better than cleaner water.  Similarly better sanitation is also more effective at disease prevention.  The "gold standard" is to have one latrine for every 20 people.  Even better is to have one for each family, but that is a bit hard to accommodate for right after a disaster.

The other major take away from the morning is that children are disgusting and are filled with germs/disease (yay for going into peds!!).  Okay that is a bit over the top, but they do help to spread disease because the last thing on their mind is sanitation.