Loowatt Offers Emergency Relief in Madagascar Central Prison.

​In early October, while pneumonic plague was spreading in Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar, the youth block of the city’s central prison encountered an untimely and potentially deadly situation.

The prison, which hosts 145 young people between the ages of 13 and 19, was required to enforce an isolation procedure, to avoid infection reaching the general prison community. The young offenders live in two cramped rooms, so transmission of the disease would be impossible to control and would inevitably result in a number of deaths. Such dramatic quarantine conditions are necessary; each year, the plague has claimed many lives within the prison. As the number of victims seems to have increased this year in the capital, the Malagasy people require help and support through this alarming epidemic.

The untimely event that occurred, was the complete obstruction of the toilets serving each of the 2 rooms, leaving the young prisoners without a functioning toilet and with dramatically increased health risks associated with faecal contamination. With repairs to the prisons’ toilets estimated to take over a month, the NGO Grandir Dignement, which works to improve the conditions for incarcerated youth in Madagascar, reached out to Loowatt for an emergency solution.
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In just two days, Loowatt was able to deploy toilets to the prison and teach the children on the hygienic use and servicing of the toilets. This quick and efficient intervention highlights the versatility of Loowatt’s technology, particularly in disaster relief situations.