What the new coronavirus measures in the Netherlands mean for you

DutchNews, March 13, 2020 

Empty shelves in a Dutch supermarket. Photo: DutchNews.nl 

The Dutch government on Thursday announced new nationwide measures to try to contain the coronavirus epidemic in the Netherlands. Here’s what you need to know. 

Social contacts

• If you have a cold, a cough, sore throat or a fever stay home. Avoid contact with others. Only call your doctor if your symptoms get worse. 
• Gatherings of more than 100 people have been cancelled. This includes public places such as museums, concerts, theatres, professional and amateur sports events and matches. 
• Churches and mosques are also cancelling their services 
• There are currently no restrictions on visiting a cafe or restaurant, as long as you do not have any symptoms 
• Work from home if possible or stagger your working times. 
• Try to avoid close contact with the elderly and people with weakened immune systems. 
• In particular, elderly people and those with weakened immune systems are asked to avoid large gatherings and public transport. 
• Healthcare workers are being asked to stay home only if they have symptoms including a fever. They are also being asked not to travel abroad. 

Education

• Universities and hbo colleges have been requested to offer online lectures and the university and college associations have said they will stop all physical forms of education for the time being, including exams. 
• Children who have a cold, cough or fever should stay at home. 
• Primary schools, secondary schools, secondary vocational schools (MBO) and childcare centres will remain open as usual. This, the government says, is because children and young people are not high-risk groups and closing schools would have a major impact on society without contributing significantly to reducing the spread of coronavirus. 

The measures apply up to and including March 31. 

Hygiene 

The Dutch public health institute RIVM and World Health Organisation say everyone should follow these instructions to prevent infection: 

• Avoid shaking hands and physical contact 
• Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly with soap or alcohol rub 
• Sneeze into a tissue or  your elbow 
• Use paper tissues and dispose of them immediately 
• Stay away at least one metre away from people who are sneezing or coughing 
• Avoid touching your face with your hands, which may have picked up the virus 

The RIVM says face masks should only be worn by medical staff. Most of the paper masks used by the general public are worthless and offer a false sense of security, officials say. 

Coronavirus in the Netherlands, the questionsyou want answered 

Tests 

Tests for coronavirus can only be requested via the local health board or a hospital and it takes around 24 hours for the test results to come through. 

Testing is currently only being carried out on people who have worsening symptoms and have been in an at risk area or in contact with people who have coronavirus. 

The RIVM has an interactive map showing where corona infections are being confirmed. 

Can I still go on holiday? 

The Dutch foreign affairs ministry has up-to-date advice on foreign travel and has set up a red to green coding system for coronavirus. Currently China, Iran and Italy should be avoided for all but essential travel. The Dutch government website has more information in English. 

The US has imposed a travel ban on all incoming flights from the EU from Saturday. 

Official information sources in English 

Dutch public health institute RIVM 
Dutch government website 
The government has also published flyers in a variety of languages about the recommended hygiene measures.

Related Articles:

The Netherlands cancels big events, but won’t close schools in corona clampdown


"Kryon on Corona", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar 13, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis) - New

China battles virus spread with masks and disinfectant

Yahoo – AFP, Jing Xuan TENG, January 29, 2020

People in Beijing and across China are donning masks, spraying antiseptic and
staying off the streets in a battle to halt the spread of a viral outbreak (AFP Photo/
NICOLAS ASFOURI)

Beijing (AFP) - At a deserted restaurant in China's capital, one black-and-white sign stands out among colourful the decor and neon signs advertising braised meat dishes: "this store has been disinfected today."

People in Beijing and across China are donning masks, spraying antiseptic and staying off the streets in a battle to halt the spread of a viral outbreak that has killed more than 130 people nationwide and gripped the country with fear of getting sick.

Authorities are disinfecting trains and planes while people are encouraged to stay home during the Lunar New Year holiday or wear masks if they go out.

Businesses like the Hao Lu Wei braised meat restaurant, located in an eerily quiet mall in central Beijing, are scrubbing their facilities to reassure wary customers. Many others have just remained shut.

"Please be assured while shopping that our store has been comprehensively disinfected, and have a Happy New Year!" read a sign in the window of a glasses store, devoid of patrons.

The capital of 20 million people is normally quiet around the holiday as migrant workers return home to visit family, but news of the rapidly spreading infection has left malls and boulevards exceptionally silent.

Businesses in Beijing are scrubbing their facilities to reassure wary customers, 

while many others have just remained shut (AFP Photo/NICOLAS ASFOURI)

Anxious shoppers desperate to protect themselves from infection have stripped stores of hand sanitisers.

"There has been nothing since before the New Year," said Li, a 35-year-old pharmacist clad in a thick face mask, turning away a delivery driver looking to fetch rubbing alcohol on behalf of a customer waiting at home.

Health workers in hazmat suits have set up screening checkpoints at subway station entrances, while officers at one police station forbade entry without temperature checks.

Some residential buildings are checking the temperatures of visitors.

Only a handful of patrons milled through the upscale Taikoo Li shopping centre on Tuesday, as security staff posted signs urging shoppers to cover their faces and the smell of disinfectant hung thick in the air.

Southern Guangdong province, which has 110 million people, ordered residents to wear face masks in public.

Other local governments have issued similar edicts across the country, prompting authorities to rush to ensure factories can churn out more masks.

Several local governments have ordered citizens to wear masks in public, 

prompting authorities to rush to ensure factories can churn out more masks 

(AFP Photo/NICOLAS ASFOURI)

Even more drastic measures have been taken in Wuhan, the industrial city in central China where the new coronavirus outbreak was first detected.

It -- and several neighbouring cities in Hubei province -- have been almost completely sealed off, with authorities grounding flights, halting trains and banning car travel for more than 50 million people.

'We try to stay home'

Some in China have coped with the boredom of being confined to their homes through wry social media posts.

One video circulating on the messaging app WeChat shows a group of middle-aged men and women playing mahjong while wearing masks -- and transparent plastic bags covering their heads.

A popular meme shared on the platform, as well as other social media networks, shows a well-known dinner scene from "My Fair Princess" -- a popular 1990s TV costume drama -- with surgical masks photoshopped onto the actors' faces.

In another widely circulated image, a man protects himself from the virus by wearing two surgical masks covering his entire face, with holes cut out for his eyes.

The city is normally quiet around the Lunar New Year holiday but news of the 

rapidly spreading infection has left malls and boulevards exceptionally silent

 (AFP Photo/NICOLAS ASFOURI)

On the streets of Beijing, not everyone has fallen victim to the anxiety sweeping the country.

One couple in their 30s stood on the street in the city's otherwise empty Sanlitun entertainment district and removed their face masks to smoke cigarettes.

The man carried several plush toys won from the claw machine games inside a nearby arcade. He said he assumed the machines were being disinfected regularly, but wasn't sure.

"We came here because we don't know what else to do," the man, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

"We try to stay at home as much as possible."

Toilet controversy: India's Modi ignores protests to collect Gates award

Yahoo – AFP, September 25, 2019

The decision to honor Narendra Modi provoked several withering op-eds and the ire
of three Nobel prize winners, citing rising attacks against minorities under his tenure
(AFP Photo/STEPHANIE KEITH)

New York (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday brushed aside an outcry from human rights activists to receive an award from the Gates Foundation in New York for his efforts to end open defecation.

The decision to honor the Indian leader provoked several withering op-eds and the ire of three Nobel prize winners, citing rising attacks against minorities under Modi's tenure, while British-Asian actors Jameela Jamil and Riz Ahmed who had been due to attend dropped out.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it respected the critics' views but defended its decision, saying sanitation is a neglected issue and India's program can serve as a model for other countries.

"I dedicate this award to all those Indians who transformed the 'Clean India Mission' into a people's movement and started giving cleanliness the highest priority in their daily lives," Modi said after collecting the award from billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

India's government says it has built more than 100 million toilets under a $20 billion initiative begun in 2014 to address the issue of open defecation, particularly in rural areas, a major public health issue in the country.

Under Modi's plan, tribal households get $200 each for building latrines.

But ahead of the ceremony, Nobel Peace Prize winners Mairead Maguire, Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman and Shirin Ebadi said that under Modi's leadership, "India has descended into dangerous and deadly chaos that has consistently undermined human rights, democracy.

"This is particularly troubling to us as the stated mission of your foundation is to preserve life and fight inequity," they wrote, urging the Gates Foundation to change its decision.

In addition to a rise in mob lynchings of Muslims, Christians, and Dalits, they noted the decision by Genocide Watch to issue warnings for the state of Assam and Indian-administered Kashmir.

The disputed territory is under a communications blackout that has lasted 50 days after Modi rescinded its autonomy.

The award was also protested in an online petition that garnered 100,000 signatures as well as a comment piece co-authored by feminist leader Gloria Steinem.

Modi won a second term in a huge election victory in May and drew tens of thousands of diaspora fans on Sunday in an unusual joint rally in Houston with President Donald Trump.

He did not respond to the criticism over the award.

The Gates Foundation told AFP in a statement: "Before the Swachh Bharat mission, over 500 million people in India did not have access to safe sanitation, and now, the majority do.

"The Swachh Bharat Mission can serve as a model for other countries around the world that urgently need to improve access to sanitation for the world's poorest."

Startups tackle Indian women's toilet woes

Yahoo – AFP, Abhaya SRIVASTAVA, 30 September 2018

Prime Minister Narendra Modi says his government has made significant
progress in improving access to toilets in India

With her bladder fit to burst on a recent ride with an all-female motorbike club, Vidhi Malla chugged on her 350cc "Thunderbird" into a fancy highway eatery near New Delhi and rushed to the toilet.

But to her disgust, if not to her surprise, the facilities stank and the seat was splattered with urine, forcing the 34-year-old to get back on her bike and wait till she got home.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will trumpet progress in improving access to toilets at a Delhi convention starting this weekend -- but as Malla's experience shows, there is still a long way to go.

Some help is at hand from local startups providing ways to avoid coming into contact with or clean up filthy toilet seats, which doctors warn pose a health risk to many women.

"Toilets are a huge issue. Once I caught an infection from using a loo in a big hotel," Malla, a public relations consultant, told AFP.

Malla's friends in her bike gang recounted their own horror stories -- from bins overflowing with used toilet paper to wiping the seat with the edge of their dresses.

Using a dirty toilet, not drinking enough water or holding urine for a long time puts women at a greater risk of urinary tract infections, a painful complaint that half of women report having had at least once.

India's first female urination device costs 200 rupees ($3) for a pack of ten

Indian toilets "are a breeding ground for infections", gynaecologist Anshu Jindal told AFP.

New businesses tackling the problem are tapping into a feminine hygiene sector forecast by Euromonitor to grow to $522 million by 2020 from $340 million now as India's middle class swells.

India's first female urination device, the PeeBuddy, is a simple candy-green cardboard funnel laminated with water-resistant coating allowing women to keep their distance from loo seats.

PeeSafe meanwhile, dispensed from a purple spray can, is a seat sanitiser.

"We have sold 750,000 units in the last 18 months and we are now present in 10 other countries," said Vikas Bagaria, founder of PeeSafe.

Innovations like these have helped to "liberate" women like Malla, she says, meaning they don't have to think twice before hitting the road.

Stand-and-pee

Such issues are set to figure highly at the Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention, running from Saturday to Tuesday.

A lack of sanitation remains a big problem in India, and doctors warn unclean 

toilets are a health risk for women

The event, coinciding with Gandhi's 150th birthday, is hosted by Modi with UN chief Antonio Guterres in attendance alongside ministers and experts.

A lack of sanitation remains a burning issue for India -- and much of the developing world -- despite an aggressive drive by Modi's government since he came to power in 2014.

His government says it has slashed the number of people forced to defecate in the open from 550 million in 2014 to less than 150 million today.

But the state of existing toilets still shocks. The capital Delhi, for example, a megacity teeming with 19 million people, has just a few hundred public washrooms.

A survey of 200-odd toilets by Action Aid last year found 70 percent of them unclean and without a water supply.

Entrepreneurs abroad have also created products to help women but they are often prohibitively expensive in a country where hundreds of millions of people live on less than a dollar a day.

For instance the reusable, silicone GoGirl stand-and-pee device costs $9.99 apiece in the United States, while the Shewee goes for $12.

But a pack of 10 single-use, locally produced PeeBuddy funnels costs 200 rupees ($3) and a pack of two PeeSafe 75 ml sprays 350 rupees.

Deep Bajaj, the brains behind PeeBuddy, came up with the idea during a road trip when he noticed women in his group were not drinking anything.

"Men are so blessed, we can stand and pee almost anywhere," Bajaj told AFP, checking a consignment for dispatch at his chock-a-block warehouse.

India withdraws controversial tax on sanitary pads

Yahoo – AFP, July 22, 2018

A national survey report released earlier this year said around 60 percent of young
women in India aged between 16 and 24 years did not have access to sanitary
pads (AFP Photo/INDRANIL MUKHERJEE)

India has withdrawn a controversial tax on sanitary pads following a vocal campaign led by activists and Bollywood stars to boost female education and empowerment.

Saturday's announcement is part of a slew of changes to the national goods and services tax (GST) intended to reduce the prices of around 90 key consumer goods, many of which target urban middle classes ahead of next year's general election.

"I think all women will be happy to know that sanitary pads will now have 100 percent exemption. There will be no GST on sanitary pads," India's acting finance minister Piyush Goyal told journalists on Saturday.

Activists, Bollywood actors and some politicians had opposed the 12 percent tax, citing a lack of access and affordability for a key hygiene product as a key barrier to female empowerment in the country.

A national survey report released earlier this year said around 60 percent of young women aged between 16 and 24 years did not have access to sanitary pads.

The figure was as high as 80 percent for some of India's poorer central and eastern states.

Reports in the last few years have linked absence of basic infrastructure such as toilets at Indian government schools outside big urban centres, and lack of access to sanitary pads, with higher dropout rates among girls.

"One of those days when a news brings tears of joy as a cause close to ur heart gets fulfilled," Akshay Kumar, one of Bollywood's most popular stars, wrote on Twitter.

Kumar was the lead actor in Padman, a Bollywood movie released earlier this year about the life of an activist who created a line of low-cost sanitary napkins for rural India.

"Thank you ... for understanding the need for menstrual hygiene and exempting sanitary pads from tax. I'm sure crores (tens of millions) of women in our country are silently sending gratitude ur way," he added.

The new national GST (goods and services tax) was introduced last July under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and was the country's biggest tax overhaul in a generation.

It was meant to unify the over $2 trillion economy into a single market, with four tax rates of 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent.

Revenge of a forgotten medical 'genius'

Yahoo – AFP, Philippe SCHWAB,  June 30, 2018

With his 200th birthday approaching, the life-saving work of Hungarian obstetrician
Ignaz Semmelweis is finally getting its due (AFP Photo/ALEX HALADA)

Vienna (AFP) - It's not an uncommon fate for a pioneering scientist: languishing unrecognised in his time before dying in obscurity. But as his 200th birthday approaches, the life-saving work of a Hungarian obstetrician is finally getting its due.

Decades before Louis Pasteur won widespread acceptance for the germ theory of disease, Ignac Semmelweis was battling his peers to accept what is today medical orthodoxy -- doctors should thoroughly disinfect their hands before treating patients.

Born on July 1 1818, Semmelweis joined the obstetrics department of Vienna's general hospital in 1846 and was immediately struck by the extremely high maternal mortality rate in the wing where student doctors trained: it stood at more than 10 percent, at times going up to almost 40 percent.

By contrast, in the neighbouring wing where midwives trained, the rate stayed under the contemporary average of three percent.

"This disparity troubled Semmelweis enormously and he started a thorough epidemiological study," says Bernhard Kuenburg, president of Vienna's Semmelweis Foundation.

In 1847, the penny dropped when a colleague died of septicaemia after carrying out an autopsy: Semmelweis surmised that dead bodies must hold invisible but potentially deadly "particles".

"At the time, medical students went directly from an autopsy to assist with a labour without disinfecting their hands," Kuenburg told AFP.

With soap not being enough to fix the problem, Semmelweis imposed a more rigorous regime of hand-washing for five minutes with a harsh chlorinated lime solution.

With this "very simple method" Semmelweis slashed the mortality rate "to almost zero," Kuenburg says.

A commemorative plaque for pioneering scientist Ignaz Semmelweis at Vienna's 

general hospital where he battled his peers to accept today's medical orthodoxy -- 

doctors should thoroughly disinfect their hands before treating patients (AFP 

Photo/ALEX HALADA)

Fiery disposition

But instead of plaudits, Semmelweis suffered the wrath of the grandees of Vienna's medical fraternity and in 1849 his contract was not renewed.

"The self-estimation of the doctors was very high back at this time. Of course they were offended because they didn't like the idea that they were guilty of causing this terrible mortality rate," Kuenburg says.

Moreover, it would still be a quarter of a century before Pasteur was finally able to prove the existence of "microbes".

Other doctors demanded evidence, according to Kuenburg.

"They said: 'No, Mr Semmelweis cannot be right. He cannot show us the pathogens so something is fishy with this theory.'"

And Semmelweis's fiery disposition and lack of tact didn't help -- he did not shrink from calling colleagues "killers".

Towards the end of his life his mental health deteriorated and he died in an asylum in 1865, at the age of 47.

100 deaths a day in the EU

At the end of the 19th Century Semmelweis's reputation began to be rehabilitated after the discoveries of Pasteur, Robert Koch and Alexandre Yersin bore out his theories.

In 1924 the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine dedicated a medical thesis to him and hailed him as a "genius".

Today he is considered the father of modern theories of hospital hygiene and sterilisation.

Bernhard Kuenburg, president of the Semmelweis Foundation, demonstrates the use 

of disinfectants to wash hands -- medical orthodoxy today (AFP Photo/ALEX HALADA)

But even though disinfecting hands is accepted as common sense for medical personnel, the practice still isn't as systematic as it should be, according to Professor Didier Pittet, infection control expert at the World Health Organization (WHO).

Worldwide, the practice is only adhered to "in 50 percent of cases on average, even though it can prevent 50 to 70 percent of hospital infections," he told AFP.

Some 3.2 million people are affected annually by hospital-acquired infections within the EU, resulting in 100 deaths every day.

Pittet estimates the global figure for such deaths to be between five and eight million year Hungary.

"Disinfecting the hands with an alcohol solution is cheap and simple and has an immediate impact on infection rates," including for multi-resistant organisms, Pittet says.

But despite this, "it's an act which isn't taken seriously enough, notably by doctors themselves" Pittet says, adding that some seem to think worrying about sterilising their hands is somehow beneath them.

However, the WHO's "Clean Care is Safer Care" campaign, launched together with 19,000 hospitals worldwide in order to raise awareness of the importance of hand sterilisation, is starting to pay off.

Following the lead of a programme piloted by Pittet in Swiss hospitals in the 1990s, rates of hand disinfection in Australia and certain Asian healthcare facilities are at almost 85 percent.

"Twenty years ago the rate of hand disinfection was only around 20 percent. Now it's becoming one of the sexiest topics in medical literature," says Pittet.

"In a way, it's Semmelweis's revenge."

It's not an uncommon fate for a pioneering scientist: languishing unrecognised in his time before dying in obscurity. But as his 200th birthday approaches, the life-saving work of a Hungarian obstetrician is finally getting its due https://t.co/9E6wga9N1t

— AFP news agency (@AFP) June 30, 2018

Xi orders China's 'toilet revolution' to march on

Yahoo – AFP,  November 27, 2017

China's 'toilet revolution' was launched in 2015 as part of efforts to make restrooms --
often squat toilets with no paper -- more tourist-friendly (AFP Photo/WANG ZHAO)

Beijing (AFP) - China's president has ordered the country to march on in its "revolution" to clean up notoriously dirty and foul-smelling public bathrooms in a bid to improve quality of life and boost tourism.

The so-dubbed "toilet revolution" was launched in 2015 as part of efforts to make restrooms -- often squat toilets with no paper -- more tourist-friendly.

President Xi Jinping said the toilet problem "is not a small thing" and cleaning up is necessary to create a "civilised" urban and rural environment, China's state news agency Xinhua reported Monday.

The country expects to have added or upgraded more than 70,000 toilets by the end of this year.

Another 64,000 will be built or enhanced between 2018 and 2020, the National Tourism Administration has said in an action plan.

According to Xinhua, since taking office in 2012, Xi has made a point on rural tours to ask villagers whether they did their business in flushable toilets or pits dug into the ground.

"In rural areas, some toilets were little more than makeshift shelters surrounded by bunches of corn stalks, and some were open pits next to pigsties," the agency said.

"Local authorities are now more aware of the important role toilets play, believing better toilets are not only beneficial for tourism, but can also... enhance the overall level of civilisation of society."

China's infamous "squatty potties" arouse fear in some would-be tourists, with several tourism blog posts dedicated to the subject.

While studies have indicated that squatting may have health benefits over sitting, the position is still hard to accept for those accustomed to porcelain thrones.

Public bathrooms in China have also been known to be bereft of toilet paper thanks to enterprising crooks sneaking out entire rolls for their personal use. Facial recognition is now employed in some places to limit individual toilet paper portions.

Internet commenters applauded the restroom remodelling movement on Chinese microblogging site Weibo on Monday.

"Support the toilet revolution," one user wrote. "Seriously, whether it's in a city or the countryside, when nature calls, it's always a hassle to find a decent bathroom."

New Delhi museum tries to break taboos surrounding toilets in a country where such convenience remains a sensitive issue

New Delhi museum tries to break taboos surrounding toilets in a country where such convenience remains a sensitive issue pic.twitter.com/X0rR1hgJab

— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 19, 2017

Related 

Indian woman wins divorce over lack of toilet

Yahoo – AFP, August 20, 2017

An Indian urinates on a wall in front of a poster in Hyderabad for the Hindi film
"Toilet", about one man's battle to build toilets in his village (AFP Photo/NOAH SEELAM)

Jaipur (India) (AFP) - An Indian court has given a woman permission to divorce her husband because their home did not have a toilet, forcing her to seek relief outdoors.

The family court in the northwestern state of Rajasthan ruled on Friday in favour of the woman, who argued that her husband's failure to provide an indoor toilet during their five years of marriage amounted to cruelty.

Justice Rajendra Kumar Sharma said women in villages often endured physical pain waiting until darkness to relieve themselves outdoors.

The judge labelled open defecation -- a major health problem in India -- disgraceful and deemed it torture to deny women a safe environment for relief, the woman's lawyer Rajesh Sharma told AFP.

Divorce is only granted in India if proof such as cruelty, violence or undue financial demands are shown in court.

It is not the first time a marriage has been called off over a toilet.

Last year a woman refused to tie the knot in Uttar Pradesh state after her fiancé refused to build a toilet for the couple.

In June another woman refused to return to the home of her in-laws until they constructed a toilet.

Nearly half of India's population -- almost 600 million people -- defecate in the open, according to UNICEF.

Some 70 percent of Indian households do not have toilets, although 90 percent have access to mobile phones.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to build a toilet in every home by 2019 in a bid to stamp out open defecation.

The government says 20 million toilets have been constructed since the start of the scheme in 2014.

But experts say open defecation not only stems from poverty but a belief that toilets inside the home are unclean.

European toilets a mystery to many refugees

Refugees often find European toilets mystifying. Pictograms and instructions in Arabic don't always have the desired effect - but help is on the way in the form of a novel kind of toilet for all.

Deutsche Welle, 17 February 2016

The influx of more than 1 million refugees last year is German society's "rendezvous with globalization," according to Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

It's undoubtedly a rendezvous of different cultures. And in the rush to provide housing, cots, clothing, food, language training and health care for the thousands of newcomers, no one thought to explain Western-style flush toilets.

The mayor of Hardheim, a small town in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, raised the issue in October - and was ridiculed for thinking it necessary to admonish the town's asylum-seekers not to relieve themselves in gardens, parks, behind hedges and behind bushes.

European sanitation norms

The difficult and often tense situation in overcrowded emergency refugee shelters, tents and gyms isn't made easier by different toilet standards and rituals.

Squat toilets are traditional in many parts of the Muslim world. Baffled by ordinary Western-style flush toilets, refugees nationwide have squatted on toilet rims or the floor of the bathroom when nature called; others have relieved themselves in the shower stalls, leaving behind human excrement on the floors.

It's not a central problem, says Manfred Nowak of Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO), a social welfare organization in Berlin that currently looks after 4,000 refugees in six initial reception facilities in the capital. But it does exist, he told DW, adding that the severity of the problem depended on where the refugees were from.

Many refugees find themselves confronted with outside portable toilets

Many migrants will have never seen toilet paper before, and even if they have, water-free wiping is widely thought to be an unsanitary way of cleaning oneself. Sit-down flush toilets are a mystery despite the pictogram instructions that have meanwhile been put up.

Co-existence of cultures

A remedy is in the works, however: Sanitary specialists at the Global Fliegenschmidt toilet manufacturers in Coswig in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt have come up with a portable "multicultural toilet."

It's been on the market for just a few days, company head Peter Fliegenschmidt told DW. His company has sold squat toilet units for years, he said, but in the wake of the refugee crisis in Germany, the challenge was to come up with a combined Western-style/squat toilet. He has already received queries from organizations that run refugee shelters.

His firm specializes in portable toilets, which are currently in high demand for use in emergency refugee shelters. "Generally, about 60 percent of our toilets are found on construction sites, and about 30 percent are used at special events like fairs and concerts," he said. Equipping refugee shelters is a new development that's bound to be "temporary," he said, adding that he saw a market for the new portable squat toilet abroad and at construction sites, which often employ foreigners.

Fliegenschmidt's design is actually surprisingly simple. It's a regular Western-style toilet bowl with a sizeable squatting platform to the left and the right.

Different body hygiene standards

Toilet routines differ, and Islamic culture has detailed toilet etiquette.

Islamic countries traditionally use water to wash. The myreligionislam.com website lists 20 rules and practices "to be followed when answering the call of nature." One rule stipulates using fingers to clean oneself, and "if there are still traces," washing them with water. Cleaning the private parts "with stones and similar materials" is regarded as an "acceptable substitute for cleaning them with water."

Other rules forbid talking, singing, smoking or reading the paper while on the toilet. People are also advised to enter the bathroom left foot first, while exiting with the right.

Beijing tasked with crap job of creating 'toilet revolution' in rural China

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-07-18

Outhouses in Quzhou, Zhejiang province. (Internet photo)

Toilets in the Chinese countryside have earned a nasty reputation, with some little more than ramshackle shelters surrounded by bunches of cornstalk and others just open pits next to pigsties.

However, a toilet revolution is under way as the Chinese government scrambles to meet a UN health target requiring 75% of rural areas to have sanitary toilets by this year.

China's national standard require toilets in rural homes to have walls, roofs, doors and windows and to be at least two square meters in size. They may be flush toilets or dry toilets with underground storage tanks.

Provincial officials around the country said they have been urged to renovate sub-standard toilets and build new ones for farmers.

"Toilets seem like quite an insignificant thing, easily overlooked, but we find it to be an important and quite difficult task," Chen Xiaojin, deputy chief of the health department in eastern China's Jiangsu province, told Xinhua.

Currently, 94% of rural Jiangsu homes have these "sanitary" toilets. Chen said Jiangsu boasts the highest number of up-to-standard toilets in the country, thanks to persistent work in persuading and assisting rural residents to upgrade their facilities.

Sanitary toilets are a health priority for Jiangsu officials. The provincial health department publishes a ranking of cities each month based on their work to build new toilets. Officials who have slacked off risk being reprimanded.

According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, a national figure on rural toilets will not be available until the end of the year. But the commission said China should have no problem meeting the UN target, as the 2014 figure had already reached 74%. China will set an additional national target of 85% for 2020.

"We must realize the period from now to 2020 is crucial. We are under a lot of pressure, and officials at every level must advance with the campaign," said Li Bin, head of the commission, at a national conference last December.

In Yongkang Village in central Jiangsu, villager Bu has just finished building a flush toilet.

"This kind of new, high-quality toilet is much better and cleaner with no smell," he said. His old one was a thatched space full of flies and maggots. "In the countryside, toilets used to be the dirtiest places. Now they have become the cleanest spots," he said.

HEAVY FUNDING

In Bu's village, each household received 800 yuan (about US$130) from the government to rebuild or renovate their toilets during the first half of 2015. The average home toilet upgrade costs about 3,000 yuan (about US$485), and the farmers must make up the costs not covered by the subsidies.

From 2004 to 2013, China's central government earmarked 8.27 billion yuan (US$1.33 billion) to build toilets in rural areas. Farmers who have agreed to build new toilets are eligible to receive the funds. The amounts vary from 150 yuan (US$24) in central and western China to 500 yuan (US$80) in the eastern and southern regions, where building materials are more expensive. Local governments with deeper pockets may also offer additional subsidies to villagers.

However, officials claim convincing rural residents to change their toilets is a challenge. "Most villagers are used to their way of using the toilet. It is hard to change," said Wang Zhigang, Communist Party secretary in Tanggou township in northern Jiangsu.

Farmers collect feces to be composted on their farmland. If they use flush toilets, no compost will be left behind. Dry toilets with tanks bring the extra task of regular cleaning.

"We had to build a few toilets first and take villagers to visit, and then encourage them to build new ones," he said. Slogans such as "sanitary toilets improve lives" are painted on walls of rural homes. TV stations are told to air videos promoting the use of better toilet facilities.

Fu Yanfen, a researcher at China Disease Prevention and Control, warned that about 80% of contagious diseases such as diarrhea and cholera in rural China are caused by contamination from toilets.

"The improvement of rural health has a profound impact on rural life and the rural economy. The local government must keep up with their work. We should continue to help the villagers in the repair, cleaning and maintenance of these facilities," Health Minister Li Bin said.

A renovated bathroom at Guilin Central Square, Guangxi, Feb. 26. (File photo/Xinhua)

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