Inclusive WASH free learning portal

WaterAid in Australia, in collaboration with the WASH Reference Group, is  hosting five online learning sessions and a learning workshop on inclusive WASH. The first session started on 30 October 2011 and the programme will end with the learning workshop in May 2012 in Melbourne, Australia.

A recording of the first introductory webinar is now online. The second learning session on gender runs until 18 November 2011. Following sessions will be on the disabled, HIV/AIDS and chronic illness, and the poorest of the poor.

How to integrate water, sanitation and hygiene into HIV programmes

Bery, R.; Rosenbaum, J. (2010). How to integrate water, sanitation and hygiene into HIV programmes. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization (WHO). 113 p. : 5 boxes, 7 tab. Bibliography: p. 59-70. – Includes glossary
ISBN 978-92-4-154801-4
Download full report

This document integrates Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practices into HIV care. It draws on experiences from the USAID-funded Hygiene Improvement Project (USAID/HIP) . It contains guidance on implementing priority WASH practices, including WASH in global and national HIV/AIDS policy and guidance, and integrating WASH–HIV programmes.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the document and some background on the evidence of the importance of WASH, the burden of unsafe water and sanitation, and effective WASH practices.

Chapter 2 provides guidance on the WASH practices that national HIV/AIDS programmes should implement as a priority, and outlines a recommended approach for improving WASH practices. The chapter includes detailed
descriptions of recommended practices such as steps for hand washing, strategies for treating water and methods of food handling.

Chapter 3 describes steps to integrate WASH into key HIV-related reference documents such as policies, guidelines and handbooks, on a national and global level.

Chapter 4 provides examples of specific language that can be used to modify HIV/AIDS policies and related materials, using safe drinking water as an example.

Chapter 5 presents interventions that could be considered for programme approaches for WASH–HIV integration, depending on local priorities and resources. The chapter includes practical case studies to provide snapshots of the types of integrated HIV–WASH interventions that different programmes are trying in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Viet Nam.

The annexes provide practical tools that can be adapted to the local context, and more detailed descriptions of the evidence and literature on WASH and HIV.

What’s on tap for future programming in water, sanitation and hygiene?: Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP) winding up

USAID’s Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP) is completing its 6th and final year. The project will be sharing what has been learned and accomplished as well as exploring future directions in water, sanitation and hygiene programming at a special event at the AED Conference Center in Washington DC, USA, on 3 August 2010.

This event will highlight HIP’s innovative approaches to promoting three key behaviors (safe storage and treatment of water, safe disposal of feces and handwashing) including:

• Working at scale
• Integrating WASH and HIV programming
• Sanitation innovations and sanitation marketing

For more information about the event, please contact Jessica Arnettat jarnett@aed.org or (202) 884-8352

To learn more about HIP, visit the website at www.hip.watsan.net

Source: HIP email, 02 Jul 2010

CRS – Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Considerations in Home-Based Care For People Living with HIV

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Considerations in Home-Based Care For People Living with HIV, May 2010.

Download (pdf, 394KB)

Christopher Seremet, Catholic Relief Services.

This guidance document offers water supply and sanitation facility and hygiene promotion design considerations and recommendations intended to increase access to these facilities by people living with HIV. People living with HIV often require modifications to their water supply and sanitation facilities and hygiene practices due to their debilitating illness. This guidance document is intended for Home-Based Care (HBC) practitioners serving people living with this disease as well as water and sanitation engineers and technicians tasked with providing community water supply and household sanitation systems.

India, Uttar Pradesh: transforming lives of people with HIV/AIDS through WASH services

In 2008 WaterAid India entered into a partnership with Uttar Pradesh State AIDS Control Society for a project titled Programme on Arresting Opportunistic Infections for People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) to help improve the quality of their lives through water and sanitation. The project is being implemented through CREATE in 14 districts and involves anti-retro-viral therapy cells, located in the Medical Colleges and working with District Level Networks (DLNs) of HIV positives, Drop in Centres (DICs) and Community Care Centres (CCCs), which are care and support centres during opportunistic infection.

These have also become WASH information centres where people living with HIV/AIDS are able to learn about key hygiene practices. The centres share information through posters and pamphlets, display different toilet models, and offer a range of audio, video and other materials as well as group and individual counselling.

PLHAs are also able to use good quality facilities at the centres, such as water filters, washbasins, urinals and latrines. Staff are trained on WASH issues and are able to tell PLHA about the importance of good WASH practices in their lives.

Read more: Johnson Jeyaseelan, Source Bulletin, May 2010

Zimbabwe: Worst-case cholera scenario getting worse

Zimbabwe’s worst-case cholera scenario, as predicted by the World Health Organization (WHO), is likely to be surpassed within a few weeks and there are still about two months of the rainy season left.

In December 2008 the WHO said cholera cases could balloon to 60,000 before the rainy season ended in March 2009, but Gregory Härtl, spokesman for the organisation’s Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response office in Geneva, told IRIN that as of 25 January, 53,306 cholera cases and 2,872 deaths had been recorded since the outbreak began in August 2008 [by 28 January the death cholera death toll in Zimbabwe had climbed to 3,028] .

Cholera, an easily treatable waterborne disease, thrives in poor sanitary conditions and is expected to remain a feature until Zimbabwe’s rainy season subsides.

The Herald, a state-owned daily newspaper, trumpeted in its 26 January edition that cholera was on the “retreat” in the capital, Harare. […] However, Härtl said the conditions causing Zimbabwe’s cholera outbreak remained in place. “The systemic underinvestment in water and sanitation infrastructure and the health system … These conditions will not change overnight.”

Source: IRIN, 26 Jan 2009

To make matters worse, a report by SW Radio Africa stated that the International Red Cross has warned it could be forced to suspend its cholera-relief activities in the coming weeks, because of a critical lack of funding.

The US-based International medical rights organisation, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), have labelled Zimbabwe’s health crisis a ‘crime’ that should be the subject of an investigation by the International Criminal Court. In a report titled ‘Health in Ruins – a man made disaster in Zimbabwe’ – PHR details the spread of the cholera epidemic and outlines the implications the collapse of the healthcare system has on victims of human rights violations. The report’s preface, which is signed by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Richard Goldstone, a former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, reads: “These findings add to the growing evidence that Robert Mugabe and his regime may well be guilty of crimes against humanity.”

One overlooked effect of the cholera epidemic, mentioned by Dr Douglas Gwatidzo, chairman of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, earlier in December 2008, was that it was diverting attention away from Zimbabwe’s HIV/AIDS crisis which claims the lives of more than 400 adults every day. People living with HIV are also particularly vulnerable to cholera because their immune systems are weakened and they have more difficulty recovering.

Regular updates and background information on the cholera epidemic can be found on the UN OCHA Zimababwe web page.

Sudan: People with HIV demand safe drinking water

For years, Lole Laila Lole, chairperson of an association for people living with HIV/AIDS in southern Sudan, had to drink, cook with, and bathe in the dirty, contaminated water he fetched from the River Nile. “There was no other way,” he told IRIN/PlusNews.

Due to their weakened immune systems, people living with HIV are particularly susceptible to infections and diseases that can be present in untreated water. But after testing positive [in Khartoum], Lole was forced to return to the virtually non-existent water system of Juba, the southern capital, which had been at war for close to two decades.

The conflict ended in 2005, but government leaders in the south say they lack adequate resources to redevelop the war-ravaged region and deliver services such as providing safe water.

Since the end of the war, treatment tablets have become available in the shops, and HIV-positive people who can afford them are now able to protect themselves from the outbreaks of cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases.

This year, Population Services International (PSI), with funding from the US Centres for Disease Control, began including water treatment tablets [Water Guard] in the basic care packets they distribute to people with HIV every three months. The decision to include Water Guard in PSI’s care packets was partly in response to pressure from people living with HIV.

Women in Sudan also face very high maternal health risks. The risks are significantly higher for HIV-positive mothers and babies, particularly if they are unable to access safe drinking water.

Read more: IRIN/PlusNews, 12 May 2008