Lubango — The southern Huíla Province governor, Ramos da Cruz, appealed Monday in Lubango to municipal and communal administrators and chieftains, to sensitise the population about the awareness with care to be taken in maintaining the basic sanitation in their areas.

The governor was speaking during the opening of the provincial workshop on "basic sanitation", promoted by Huila government in partnership with Unicef, under the slogan "Huíla, Province without open air defecation".

The official said this will be one of the most appropriate measures to stop people defecating in the open air, which has been the cause of lots of diseases, mainly acute diarrhoea.

"The problem of defecating in the open air has been an embarrassment for long time. ( ) The response to the cholera problem has been mainly in distributing drinkable water to the populations, the creation of cholera treatment centres and garbage removal", he said.

Ramos da Cruz regretted that almost nothing has been done to stop the situation and assume that the main causes of those diseases is the poor basic sanitation.

On the other hand, the representative of Unicef in Angola, Angela Kearney, found disturbing the situation of the basic sanitation in the province, being the third with more cases of cholera in the country.

From February 2006 until March 2008, about 6, 861 were diagnosed and 200 died from cholera.

"I remind you that 2008 was declared worldwide by the United Nations as the year of basic sanitation, therefore it demands more attention to basic sanitation and Unicef believes that this will be an effective measure to reduce 80 per cent of diarrhoea and cholera cases" Angela Kearney emphasised.