[Water resources and health problems in developing countries]

The rapidly increasing use of water for agricultural and hydroelectric development in developing countries is causing serious health problems. These can be divided into two categories; the diseases whose transmission depends on water; and the changes in the life style of the population. We review briefly the principal health problems and analyze the principles to be followed in solving them, and the reasons of the success or failure of health programs. Among the topics we consider, are the development versus health, the collaboration of health service personnel with the rest of the personnel participating in water development schemes, the necessity of ensuring a multidisciplinary approach to the solutions of these health problems, the necessity of integration of the public health component within the administrative and budgetary levels and the coordination of public health measures with the development of project from the planning phase through the completion and maintenance phases, the purely medical aspects of the health problems involved appearing as being of secondary importance. Common sense, and the use of simple, cheap methods adapted to the local conditions, and applied focaly, provide better solutions than the sophisticated, more general and expensive approaches. The time and budget accorded for surveys and research, usually excessive, should be limited. It is necessary to adhere to a disciplined use of water. Ambitions and utopian dreams and strategies of disease eradication should, in general, give way to more limited, but accessible objectives, whose attainment would lead to a decrease of the clinical and socioeconomic gravity of the health problems to a "reasonable" level.