There were five deaths from leptospirosis last year out of the seven hundred and fifty cases that were recorded by the Health Ministry.

Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete says they also recorded 3000 dengue fever cases along with a few typhoid numbers and in an effort to control this – they had implemented the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene project.

Dr Waqainabete says a significant decrease has been noted in water-borne diseases since the WASH project came into place.

“ As we speak now from the end of last year till now we have had only 24 dengue cases and they were all up in Labasa, we have only three leptospirosis cases and six typhoids and the reason is that whole of last year we really really worked hard in the communities and the villages. We just concentrated on WASH. We went to them, we visited them all over the nation and we went to them and talked about just making sure that we get their water right and get their sanitation right”

The Health Minister says their Public Health Team also carried out clean up campaigns around the country.

“We made sure we do clean up campaigns in the informal from Lami to Nausori and Nadi all the way to Ba. We made sure we put skip bins so we made sure that all their white wear went in the skip bins, all the old tires went into the skip bins, that’s what we concentrated on and the numbers have reduced dramatically.”

The team has so far visited more than 311 households, speaking to them about water and sanitation issues.