354. A clear improvement of the quality of drinking water had been registered
since 1990, since the percentage of the population with clean drinking water at
home or in reasonably accessible places increased from 60.7% at this date to
86% in 1992 and to 89.6% in 1994 to reach 98.5% in 2004.
355. The checking of the bacteriological and physico-chemical quality of the water
supplied, the identification of the risk factors of the degradation in the water
quality and the monitoring of the state of hygiene of the water works constitute the
main activities undertaken by the public authorities in this area.
E) The evacuation of waste water
356. It should be noted that the rate of the population having adequate means for
the hygienic evacuation of waste water (through evacuation networks, septic
tanks, cesspools….had reached 100% in the urban areas and 70% in the rural
areas in 1999. In 2004, the rate of connections to evacuation networks (ONAS
network) reached 75.9% for the urban population against 4.8% for the rural
population. The number of purification stations which in 1991 were 25 increased
to 66 in 2003 to reach 78 in 2004.
357. The quality of untreated and treated waste water is subjected to regular
bacterial checking. Likewise, special attention is paid to the checking of waste
water treated and recycled for agricultural purposes.
F) Environmental hygiene and Industrial hygiene
358. Tunisia has implemented a strategy in the domain of environmental hygiene
based on the following four points:
a) Active intersectoral collaboration in the programmes with an incidence
on health matters (such as the extension of grassroots health
infrastructures and the national programme of environmental
cleanliness and protection);
b) Encouraging community participation through the provision of technical
support to health promoting projects, particularly those which are
implemented by the district committees in the urban areas and the
collective interest groups (GIC) in the rural areas. Tunisia has, since
1991, unreservedly been a member of the project « Towns-Health » of
the WHO. It is in this context that a network grouping 12 towns initially
had been set up in September 1991. The national network was then
extended to cover 33 towns and villages.
c) Reinforcement of the activities of monitoring and of health education in
the matter of drinking water supplies and mass consumption products
as well as the hygienic evacuation of hospital waste;
d) Development of the human and material resources of the area’s
Hygiene Department.
359. The measures taken by Tunisia to improve the aspects of environmental
hygiene are concretized by the putting in place of health control networks for the
controlling of the institutions among which figure 10,274 educational and training
institutions (schools, restaurants and housing), drinking water in rural and urban
areas, mineral water plants, water for bathing (sea water, swimming pools,
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