Donate Now | Clean Water to Combat Cholera
Cholera can be fatal. Clean water is the first line of defense.
Countries in southern and eastern Africa are facing the deadliest outbreak of cholera in the past decade.
Cholera is an often-deadly infection caused by eating or drinking contaminated food or water. It can kill within hours. One in three suffering from cholera are children. The worst part of this story? Cholera is preventable.
Cholera, like other waterborne illnesses, spreads through contaminated water into everything people need to live their lives – what they drink, what they eat, what they wash with.
The most effective way to prevent cholera and other waterborne diseases? Clean water.
Public health workers are saying it is rare to see so many cases of cholera in so many countries at the same time. This devastation is linked to increasingly frequent and extreme weather events, a shortage of vaccines, but most critically a lack of clean water, sanitation and hygiene.
We are working in three countries to help stem the spread of cholera. Some examples of our response are:
Cholera response
Mobile hand-washing stations
These hand-washing stations are quick to assemble, easy to move and are very effective in preventing the spread of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
$27
Training hygiene educators
Pay to train health and community members in hygiene education so they can reach large numbers of people quickly with life-saving hygiene knowledge.
$50
Hygiene kit
Fund the contents of a hygiene kit for one family. Contents include potable water, soap, wash cloths and feminine hygiene products. These kits can prevent the spread of diseases like cholera.
$156
Lillian, Zambia
When Lillian Lungu sent her husband off to work in the morning, the day seemed like any other. He picked up a snack at a food stand on his way home in the afternoon.
By that evening he was violently ill. Lillian raced him to the local clinic where beds were filling up with patients showing the same symptoms. The clinic was overwhelmed and her husband was soon transferred to an emergency cholera treatment center set up in the stadium in Lusaka, Zambia. That’s when they lost contact.
Days later, Lillian got the news that her husband had died. She fears for the future of her family as he was the sole source of income, supporting her and their 11 children.
I don’t want them to end up on the street.
—Lillian Lungu, Zambia
Unfortunately, Lillian’s story is all too common in Zambia today as cholera spreads. Cholera is an often-deadly infection caused by eating or drinking contaminated food or water.
There is a solution
Dr. Guilherme Tomo is the chief medical officer in his district in Mozambique. He knows the impact clean water has on his ability to protect his patients and stem the spread of disease. Thanks to WaterAid, his hospital now has clean, running water and the results are simple but striking.
Our Cholera Response in More Detail
WaterAid is committed to providing immediate cholera relief as well as working towards long-term sustainable solutions that will safeguard the health and well-being of communities for generations to come.
Solutions include training community health workers, promoting community-led sanitation initiatives, and fostering long-term behavioral change towards improved hygiene practice.
At the same time, we are working to address the root causes of the cholera outbreak which is spread due to contaminated water, poor sanitation and hygiene.
Learn more →
Why WaterAid?
Since 1981, WaterAid has reached 29 million people with clean water and 29 million with decent toilets. We have been providing handwashing education for four decades and have reached 27.8 million people.
We work in 22 countries throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. We are making great progress towards our goal of reaching everyone, everywhere with clean water but we can't do any of it without you.