Clean, Hot Water Installed at All eSwatini Clinics
Voice of America
LOBAMBA - For more than a year, nurse Lindiwe Magongo has seen to the needs of 600 patients per week at her small clinic near the capital of eSwatini, the nation formerly known as Swaziland.
And until very recently, she’s fought both ordinary health issues and the global coronavirus pandemic without the most basic health care tool: clean, hot water. Doctors say handwashing, hygiene and sanitation are key to curbing the spread of illness. The coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, has claimed nearly 700 lives in this nation of just over one million people. But before the pandemic hit, 82 percent of clinics in this small, landlocked southern African nation lacked this vital tool. In recent months, a multinational initiative has installed an outdoor solar-powered handwashing station in every clinic. On a recent weekday, Magongo beamed at the new handwashing station at the gate of her clinic. Dozens of emaSwati, as the people of eSwatini are called, had lined up before the clinic opened, and were now filing in after washing their hands.A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's rocket launch during a news program at a bus terminal in Seoul, South Korea, May 27, 2024. FILE - Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi speaks to reporters in Colombo, July 29, 2023. FILE - A TV screen shows a report of North Korea's spy satellite into orbit with its third launch attempt this year with an image of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 22, 2023.
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.