From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 2, May 1999.

Poorly maintained pit latrines and poor personal hygiene have been identified as the sources of an increased number of typhoid cases on Tongatapu earlier this year.

But Dr Taniela Lutui, a senior medical officer with Tonga’s Ministry of Health said that the number of cases were not enough to be called an epidemic, and he denied a Radio Australia report that Tonga had an epidemic.

Taniela said that 11 typhoid cases were reported to the Ministry during the first four months of this year, comparing with only seven cases for the whole of 1998, “but we would only consider it as epidemic if five cases were reported every week,” he said.

The first case  was reported on January 6 from the village of Tatakamotonga in eastern Tongatapu, but by April 29 a total of 11 cases had been reported from from Tatakamotonga in the east to Te‘ekiu in the west, through a carrier from Tatakamotonga.

Tefoto Mausai, from the Environmental Health Division of the Ministry of Health said that these areas came under the surveillance of health inspectors, who divided Tatakamotonga into eight blocks, with 40 homes per block.

Tefoto said that after careful surveillance they had identified that the source of the disease was not from the town water supply but from poor personal hygiene during food preparation, and the 72 pit latrines in the village.

Tefoto said that the solution was to get rid of all the pit latrines in Tatakamotonga and replace them with flush toilets. Work on this toilet project is expected to start in July.