Greater Access to Improved Water Is Vital for Controlling Disease

Jeroen Ensink, a researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), gave a talk on access to improved water and sanitation in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America within the framework of the UB-ISGlobal Master of Global Health. Speaking at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, Ensink stressed that improving access to safe drinking water was essential for controlling certain preventable diseases.

Access to drinking water and basic sanitation

Certain preventable diseases are transmitted through contaminated water, whether through ingestion, person-to-person contact (particularly in the case of poor personal or household hygiene ), or insects that breed or bite near water. This is why it is so important to ensure widespread access to safe drinking water and promote hand washing to break the chain of disease transmission. Faecal bacteria can be transferred to food—and thereby into a new host—through fluids, fields (that contaminate water), flies and fingers.

According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, access to drinking water means that the source is less than 1 kilometre away from its place of use and that it is possible to reliably obtain at least 20 litres per member of a household per day. Drinking water is defined as water used for domestic purposes, drinking, cooking and personal hygiene.

Basic sanitation is the cheapest technology for ensuring good hygiene and a clean, safe, and healthy living environment. Despite this, however, less than half of the population in developing countries have access to basic sanitation facilities.

Why promote sanitation?

Access to improved water saves time and money and improves health. One of the main reasons why it is so important to promote improved sanitation is that it can prevent diseases such as diarrhea, which is responsible for 1.8 million deaths a year. Jeroen Enskin explained that hand washing can reduce the cases of diarrhea by 43%. "For this measure to be effective, people must wash their hands before eating, after going to the toilet, before cooking, and after changing a nappy."

Greater access to improved drinking water will not only help prevent certain diseases but also improve the quality of life of women, who spend over 2 hours of their day fetching water, time they could devote to looking after their children and their education. Water supply and sanitation policies are essential to the development of the world's more vulnerable populations.