Sanitation Updates

The implementation of a dengue control programme in Puerto Rico led to the discovery of previously unknown mosquito breeding sites underground. Research published in the March 2008 issue of Medical and Veterinary Entomology showed that large number of mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti), which transmit dengue fever to humans, were found to breed in septic tanks.

R. Barrera, M. Amador, A. Diaz, J. Smith, J. L. Munoz-Jordan, Y. Rosario (2008). Unusual productivity of Aedes aegypti in septic tanks and its implications for dengue control.
Medical and Veterinary Entomology ; vol. 22, no. 1 ; p. 62-69.

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Leptospirosis, a life-threatening zoonotic disease, has become an important urban slum health problem. Epidemics of leptospirosis now occur in cities throughout the developing world, as the growth of slum settlements has produced conditions for rat-borne transmission of this disease. In this prevalence survey of more than 3,000 residents from a favela slum community in Brazil, Geographical Information System (GIS) and modeling approaches identified specific deficiencies in the sanitation infrastructure of slum environments-open sewers, refuse, and inadequate floodwater drainage-that serve as sources for Leptospira transmission. In addition to the environmental attributes of the slum environment, low socioeconomic status was found to independently contribute to the risk of infection. These findings indicate that effective prevention of leptospirosis will need to address the social factors that produce unequal health outcomes among slum residents, in addition to improving sanitation.

Citation: Reis RB, Ribeiro GS, Felzemburgh RDM, Santana FS, Mohr S, et al. (200 Impact of Environment and Social Gradient on Leptospira Infection in Urban Slums. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 2(4): e228. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0000228

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Chapter: Water and Sanitation

While wide agreement exists on the need for adequate water and sanitation, progress has been slow, particularly compared with progress on other MDGs.  (…)   The most recent assessment suggests that the world is roughly on target for reaching the MDG goal of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, but it is expected to miss the goal for access to basic sanitation by half a billion people.   (…)  In addition, the summary global statistics are averages and conceal major disparities by income group.  (…)  , over half of the bottom quintile has no access to sanitation of any kind, while only 6 percent of the top quintile has no access to sanitation. (pp.82-84)

Read Global Monitoring Report Chapter 2 Achieving Better Results in Human Development

Go to main web page of the Global Monitoring Report 2008

United Nations, 21 March, (IPS): When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last January, his primary focus was not on the impending global economic recession but on the world’s growing water crisis.

“A shortage of water resources could spell increased conflicts in the future,” he told the annual gathering of business tycoons, academics and leaders from governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations.

“Population growth will make the problem worse. So will climate change. As the global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts lie just over the horizon,” he warned.

Anders Berntell, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute, says the lack of safe drinking water for over 1.0 billion people worldwide, and the lack of safe sanitation for over 2.5 billion, “is an acute and devastating humanitarian crisis.”

“But this is a crisis of management, not a water crisis per se, because it is caused by a chronic lack of funding and inadequate understanding of the need for sanitation and good hygiene at the local level,” Berntell told IPS.

He said: “This can and must be fixed through improved governance and management, and increased funding, and sustained efforts to achieve the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” which include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger and adequate water and sanitation.

A U.N. study released on the eve of World Water Day Mar. 22 says the lack of safe drinking water is not confined to the world’s poorer nations; it also threatens over 100 million Europeans.

Read More - Asian Tribune

OSLO (Reuters) - “The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers,” French 19th century author Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables. “The sewer is the conscience of the city … A sewer is a cynic. It tells everything.”

Judged by its sewers, the world is not doing well. Only 3 in 10 people now have a connection to a public sewerage system.

And with the world’s population expanding, a goal of improving sanitation by 2015 is slipping out of reach, despite progress in nations such as China and a few big contracts for firms such as Veolia or Suez to build waste treatment plants in cities from La Paz to Rabat.

Experts say a part of the solution, especially to cut water-borne diseases for the rural poor, may lie in renewed and smarter exploitation of nature — for example through plants or soil bacteria that feed on waste.

Read More - Reuters

Poverty and Sanitation: An Analysis of the Linkage between Poverty and Basic Sanitation in Honduras, Water Sanitation Program, 2008.

This document presents an analysis of poverty levels mong rural and urban households of Honduras and their access to sanitation solutions. It identifies key spects for improving services and contributing to ector policies, strategies and investment plans that arget the poor. The analysis is based on a broad eview of available documentation and data.

This study shows that the low income population in Honduras is mainly rural (74%) and that the rest resides in urban areas (26%). The highest levels of access to sanitation services in cities corresponds to household connections to piped sewerage networks, but this option mainly serves the non-poor. Only 31% f the moderately poor and 12% in extreme poverty in urban areas have achieved access to sewerage networks.

Link to the report (pdf)

Most sanitation programmes are silent about women and adolescent girls’ need to clean and change menstrual towels and menstrual management tends to be ignored in latrine design and construction and excluded from hygiene education packages. Even reproductive health and preventive health programmes in developing countries often do not address this sensitive issue. A recent article in Source Bulletin describes how WaterAid has tackled this issue in Bangladesh.

One of the first studies to highlight the lack of attention in the water sector given to menstrual hygiene was written by
Sowmyaa Bharadwaj and Archana Patkar from Junction Social consultants, Mumbai, India, in November 2004, called “Menstrual Management in Developing Countries: Taking Stock”. They gave a presentation on this topic at the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Schools Roundtable meeting, which took place in Oxford, UK, 24-26 January 2005.

In Africa, one of the activities of the QUEST programme (1998-2006) involved research in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda on the links between life skills, sexual maturation and school sanitation. One of aspects looked at was how poor menstrual management negatively affected girls school attendance. Unfortunately the research reports from this study are not available online.

The latest issue of Source Weekly elaborates on an earlier posting in this blog about the problems women in Kampala, Uganda, face due to the lack of proper places for disposal of used sanitary pads. The Source article also gives a link to a report published last year, called “Menstrual hygiene: a neglected condition for the achievement of several Millennium Development Goals”. The report was the outcome of a “Stakeholder Meeting on Menstrual Hygiene for Girls and Women in Developing Countries”, held on 28 November in The Hague, The Netherlands.

WASHINGTON DC — In 2010 China will embrace “toilet-to-tap” water treatment technology, predicts Xia Siqing, an environmental science professor at Tongji University in Shanghai and former visiting professor at Arizona State University, according to a Feb 20 story on Environmental Science Technology Online News.

Professor Xia is experimenting and testing “toilet-to-tap” purification techniques with a small-scale 105-gallons-per-day (400-liter) treatment plant housed in the university’s College Environmental Science and Engineering lab building.

Although Xia insists the reclaimed water is pure enough to be used for kidney dialysis, washing carbon-chips, and replenishing drinking-water supplies, according to the article, the water is actually reserved for use in laboratory experiments and local irrigation.

A second demonstration project of Xia‘s “toilet-to-tap” purification system is scheduled for the Shanghai World Expo to be held in 2010.

Read More - Water Tech Online

ASKNet was officially launched on 19 February 2008 at AfricaSan 2008 in Durban, South Africa.

ASKNet’s mission is to: “enhance the ability of academics and professionals across the disciplines to contribute to the mainstreaming and up-scaling of sustainable sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa, to the benefit of livelihoods, health, and the environment”.

The members of ASKNet’s temporary board are:

• Dr Nicola Rodda, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
• Dr Kouassi Dongo, University of Cocody, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
• Mr Charles Niwagaba, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

UNESCO-IHE and ASKNet have submitted a proposal to the Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) for the development of an internet-based Master Program on Sustainable Sanitation.

ASKNet is planning a Networking Conference n Maputo, Mozambique in December 2008 to mark the end of the 2008 International Year of Sanitation.

A paper reporting on two cohort studies which looked at the effect of a city-wide sanitation programme on rates of childhood diarrhoea in northeast Brazil has been shortlisted for the Lancet Paper of the Year Award 2007.

The paper, from a team including DCVBU’s Professor Sandy Cairncross and colleagues from the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil, reveals how diarrhoea prevalence in children under 3 in the areas studied fell by more than a fifth following a drive to improve sewerage coverage from 26% of households to 80%. The findings show how important urban sanitation is as a health measure and provide timely support for the launch of the 2008 International Year of Sanitation.

The paper was highlighted in Science magazine on 8 February, and the team who produced it were personally congratulated by the Brazilian Minister of Health, Jose Gomes Temporao.

The Lancet award will go to the paper that, in the view of the International Advisory Board, has made the greatest potential contribution to clinical research in the past year.

Medical Research News - Feb 18, 2007