It's often said that many residents of remote Manitoba reserves live in Third World conditions, lacking basic services like indoor plumbing and clean drinking water.
Now, researchers from the University of Manitoba are testing that theory, comparing the tiny, impoverished Caribbean island of Dominica with two northern Manitoba First Nations.
Brenda Elias, a professor of community health, suspects Dominica is taking the issue of running water more seriously than Canada, even though Canada is the far wealthier, more technologically advanced nation.
... Over the summer [2010], Elias and her team completed their field work in Dominica, where they surveyed roughly half of the 625 homes in eight hamlets where the indigenous Kalinago people live.
Conditions were disturbingly similar to what exists in 1,400 remote Manitoba First Nations homes. Most homes...communal water taps were located a hike from many homes, and water quality was often unreliable. ...
The survey found that...dengue fever is beginning to be a problem like never before.
(Source: http://tinyurl.com/winnipegpress)
THING YOU DID NOT KNOW ABOUT MOSQUITOES.... It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the average human of blood. (Sources: discovermagazine.com / anannimos.blogspot.com) - Now you know.
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