WASH and health

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) significantly affect human health.

Poor WASH is strongly linked to the transmission of common childhood diseases such as diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections.

In fact, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that around 10% of the global disease burden is caused by poor WASH. This burden falls heaviest on children, with WHO estimates linking poor WASH to 28% of child deaths worldwide.

WaterAid has decided to increase focus on the health impacts of water and sanitation, and on how these issues can be addressed through the health sector. Some examples of our recent work in this area are available below.

Join up, scale up: How integration can defeat disease and poverty

This report aims to highlight real-world examples of how integration of various approaches and interventions is working to deliver development and health results – through success stories illustrating the various shapes and forms that effective cross sector programmes are taking across countries and issue areas.

The report offers lessons learned and recommendations for policy makers.

French version:  Se regrouper pour un meilleur résultat ( PDF File 764KB)

Biggest killer of children in Africa cannot be addressed without sanitation and water 

Diarrhoea is now the biggest killer of children in Africa. Every day, 2,000 African children die from diarrhoea – deaths that are entirely preventable. This paper, produced for the 2010 African Union Summit, presents the evidence on the links between WASH and child deaths in Africa, and provides recommendations for the Summit and beyond.

Tackling the silent killer: The case for sanitation  

( PDF, 0.97Mb)

Inadequate sanitation may be the biggest killer of children under the age of five and yet it remains the most neglected of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) sectors. Every year, 9.7 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday. This paper asserts that improved sanitation could bring the single greatest reduction in these deaths.

Fatal neglect: How health systems are failing to comprehensively address child mortality

( PDF, 1.06Mb)

The international health agenda is failing to mobilise the required response to critical causes of child deaths. This paper assesses how and why the international aid system is overlooking diarrhoea, the second biggest killer of underfives after Acute Respiratory Infections.

Counting the cost: Poor progress on sanitation in South Asia

( PDF, 91kb)

Diarrhoea is the leading cause of child deaths in South Asia. Universal access targets have been set in the region and changes made, yet governments are still failing to act with the urgency required. At current rates of progress, the 2015 MDG target for sanitation will not be met in South Asia until 2043 – 28 years too late.

The sanitation problem - what can and should the health sector do ( PDF File 578KB)

Le problème de l’assainissement - Que peut et que devrait faire le secteur de la santé ( PDF File 584KB)

O problema do saneamento - O que pode e deve fazer o sector da saúde ( PDF File 595KB)   

This report seeks to reach out beyond the WASH sector to engage with actors and agencies from other sectors, particularly health and education, as part of a concerted effort to address the lack of access to WASH and the profound impact it has on health, welfare and economic growth in the world’s poorest countries and communities.

Case study - Quelimane, North Mozambique

 

Sarafina Juizo, nurse, with patients at the local clinic, Quelimane, Zambezia, Mozambique Credit: WaterAid/ Eva-Lotta Jansson

WaterAid has been working in Quelimane, North Mozambique, since 2007.

Quelimane is much less developed than Maputo in the south. It is hotter and there are more insects. There are a mix of houses – breeze block and traditional mud and sticks. There are few cars, mostly people on bicycles or walking. Crops are planted in built-up rows, with deep channels either side.

The main problem here is open defecation and flooding. Women must walk out of the village to go to the toilet. Some go across a very unstable looking bridge over a tidal river; there have been incidents of drowning because of this.

If everyone had a latrine there would be a lot less people coming to see me.
Their health would be improved. - Sarafina Juizo

There is a community association called the 7 de Abril Community Association, which started up after some major flooding of the bairro.

They got together and started digging drainage channels, and then started wondering what else they could do to help their community. WaterAid has been working with the community association to provide 57 pit latrines and 12 ecosan latrines to date. There are also plans to improve the drainage.

WaterAid sent the association to Maputo to visit the work of some of our local partners, Urbanizasao and ADASBU. They were taught how to build improved latrines, eco-latrines, and conduct hygiene education. The community association now makes bricks and implements hygiene education. There is a centre for sanitation and hygiene education. Activists are recruited from the local area. Eight of the members are women, so there is good gender equality too.

7 de Abril is an urban bairro only a few minutes from the centre of Quelimane where the water point was open from 7pm, for just two hours. But it is pitch black by then and there is no electricity.

Since April, however, the community has water available at any time and WaterAid is also negotiating to arrange for water deliveries to be organised, at low cost.

Sarafina Juizo, pictured above, is a nurse with 7 de Abril:
    
"I have been working here for two years. There is a lack of latrines here. There is a lot of open defecation.

"I see around 10 or 15 people with diarrhoea every week. If we had more latrines we would be happy because less people will come, so you’re helping my job.

Imagine if a person is sick, we cannot leave them to defecate outside. It is not right. Even this toilet that we have, it is not a good toilet. It is not an improved latrine. It smells bad. It is not good."