2007 Press Release

MIP Continues Deliver

20/02/2007

Improved environmental health facilities delivered by Torres Strait’s Major Infrastructure Program (MIP), are playing a key role in the reduction of water and hygiene related infectious diseases in the region.

The Torres Strait Regional Authority’s (TSRA) Chairman Mr Toshie Kris, said notifications of water and hygiene associated communicable diseases, like Shigellosis, Salmonella, and Hepatitis A, have decreased in the period between 1996 and 2006.

“According to data from the Queensland Notifiable Conditions Database (NOCS) incidences of these environmental health related diseases in the region have halved, with close to 40 cases per year in 1996, down to under 20 cases reported last year,” said Mr Kris.

“The MIP has installed environmental health infrastructure which has improved the quality of water sanitation and since 1998, this has played a big part in reducing these illnesses in the Torres Strait, especially when combined with health education, immunisation interventions and awareness.

“A community’s living condition plays an important role in the health and wellbeing of individuals and it is well documented that clean water, good sanitation and improved hygiene practices are significant in determining health and quality of life outcomes.

“The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2006 estimated that 24% of the global disease burden and 23% of all deaths can be attributed to environmental factors.

“WHO reported that global environmental infectious diseases such as diarrhoea were attributable to water, sanitation and hygiene, in fact 88% of such cases were attributed to these.

“It was also found by WHO that very little disease was transmitted through pathways other than those associated with water, sanitation and hygiene or food, and about 94% of all cases of diarrhoea around the world were attributable to the environment resulting in more that 1.5 million deaths annually.

“Through almost a decade of hard work, MIP has dramatically begun transforming living standards and environmental health infrastructure in the Torres Strait.

“Our people now have access to clean and safe drinking water, flushing toilets, serviced housing lots, sealed roads and drainage systems, and Island Councils are able to manage community waste efficiently through the installation of sewerage treatment plants and improved refuse control techniques.

“MIP plans to continue its important work in 2007 by focusing on more life-changing projects, including  further sub-divisional works at Bamaga, installing desalination unit slabs at Dauan, Warraber and Ugar Island communities, beginning sewerage projects in St Pauls and Kubin communities, as well as upgrading and sealing the roads on Ugar Island.

“Through MIP we are beginning to see how much needed environmental health infrastructure, can produce positive health outcomes for our people.

“However, there is more to be done until living standards in the Torres Strait are comparable to that in mainstream Australia, and it is vital that MIP continues this life-changing work,” said Mr Kris.

The Major Infrastructure Program is delivered in partnership by the Torres Strait Regional Authority and the Queensland Department of Local Government, Planning, Sport and Recreation, representing the Australian and Queensland Government’s $100 million commitment to upgrade and install vital environmental health infrastructure in the Torres Strait.

References

World Health Organization, Prüss-Üstün, Annette. Preventing disease through healthy environments. Towards an estimate of the environmental burden of disease. 2006, Geneva.

World Health Organizationm  Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Links to Health FACTS AND FIGURES. 2004, Geneva

ENDS

TSRA Media Contact: Susan Reilly. Ph: 07 4069 0700