Health Impact of the Concrete Biosand Filter in the Dominican Republic

December 2, 2011 · 0 comments

Am J Trop Med Hyg 2011 vol. 85 no. 2 309-317

An Assessment of Continued Use and Health Impact of the Concrete Biosand Filter in Bonao, Dominican Republic

Benjamin A. Aiken*, Christine E. Stauber, Gloria M. Ortiz and Mark D. Sobsey

Address correspondence to Benjamin A. Aiken, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, CB 7431 Rosenau Hall 148, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7431. E-mail: benjamin_aiken@med.unc.edu

The biosand filter (BSF) is a promising point of use (POU) technology for water treatment; however there has been little follow-up of initial implementation to assess sustainability. The purpose of this study was to examine continued use, performance, and sustainability of previously implemented concrete BSFs in Bonao, Dominican Republic. Of 328 households visited and interviewed, 90% of BSFs were still in use after approximately 1 year since installation.

Water-quality improvement, measured by fecal indicator bacteria reduction, was found to be 84–88%, which is lower than reductions in controlled laboratory studies but similar to other field assessments. In a short prospective cohort study comparing BSF to non-BSF households, odds of reported diarrheal disease in BSF households were 0.39 times the odds of reported diarrheal disease in non-BSF households. These results document high levels of sustained and effective concrete BSF use and associated improvements in water quality and health.

Inactivation of rotavirus in water by copper pot

December 2, 2011 · 0 comments

Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development Vol 1 No 3 pp 165–169

Inactivation of rotavirus in water by copper pot

V. B. Preethi Sudha, K. Ojit Singh, Sasirekha Ramani, Anu Paul and Padma Venkatasubramanian
Centre for Pharmacognosy, Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology, Institute of Ayurveda and Integrated Medicine (IAIM), 74/2, Jarakabande Kaval, Yelahanka via Attur, Bangalore – 5600106, Karnataka, India
E-mail: preethi.s@frlht.org
Department of Gastrointestinal Sciences, Christian Medical College, Vellore 632004, India

The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of copper pots for inactivation of rotavirus present in water. Distilled water was inoculated with rotavirus (2.2 × 107 plaque-forming units (PFU)/mL) and stored overnight (16 hours) at room temperature in copper pots (test) and in glass bottles (controls). The viable count of infectious virus was tested using a plaque assay on MA 104 monkey kidney cell lines. No plaques were recovered from the water stored in copper pots. On the other hand, over 106PFU/mL of virus was recovered from water stored in controls.

The copper leached into the water was at a concentration of 447.25 ± 4.78 ppb, which is well within the safety limits prescribed by the World Health Organization (2,000 ppb). The copper pot has the potential to be used as a point-of-use household water purification system, especially against waterborne pathogens such as rotavirus, which is the cause of 22% of diarrhoea hospitalizations in children less than 5 years of age in developing countries.

Microbiologic effectiveness of boiling and safe water storage in South Sulawesi, Indonesia

December 2, 2011 · 0 comments

Journal of Water and Health Vol 9 No 3 pp 577–585

Microbiologic effectiveness of boiling and safe water storage in South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Samir V. Sodha, M. Menon, K. Trivedi, A. Ati, M. E. Figueroa, R. Ainslie, K. Wannemuehler and R. Quick

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases,
Email: ssodha@cdc.gov
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, The Center for Communications Program, Baltimore, MD

In Indonesia, where diarrhea remains a major cause of mortality among children <5 years, the government promotes boiling of drinking water. We assessed the impact of boiling on water quality in South Sulawesi. We surveyed randomly selected households with at least one child <5 years old in two rural districts and tested source and stored water samples for Escherichia coli contamination. Among 242 households, 96% of source and 51% of stored water samples yielded E. coli. Unboiled water samples, obtained from 15% of households, were more likely to yield E. coli than boiled samples [prevalence ratios (PR) = 2.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.7–2.5].

Water stored in wide-mouthed (PR = 1.4, 95% CI = 1.1–1.8) or uncovered (PR = 1.8, 95% CI = 1.3–2.4) containers, or observed to be touched by the respondent’s hands (PR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.3–2.1) was more likely to yield E. coli. A multivariable model showed that households that did not boil water were more likely to have contaminated stored water than households that did boil water (PR = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.5–2.3). Although this study demonstrated the effectiveness of boiling in reducing contamination, overall impact on water quality was suboptimal. Future studies are needed to identify factors behind the success of boiling water in Indonesia to inform efforts to scale up other effective water treatment practices.

Improvement of drinking water quality by using plant biomass through household biosand filter

December 1, 2011 · 1 comment

Ecological Engineering, Volume 37, Issue 11, November 2011

Improvement of drinking water quality by using plant biomass through household biosand filter – A decentralized approach

Shams Ali Baig, Qaisar Mahmood , , Bahadar Nawab, Mustafa Nawaz Shafqat, Arshid Pervez

Sustainable Water Sanitation Health and Development Program, Department of Environmental Science, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan

The removal of microbial and physico-chemical contaminants was investigated using an innovative biosand filter (BSF) containing three combinations of coniferous pinus bark biomass (CPBB), i.e. 1 cm (treatment 2), 2.5 cm (treatment 3) and 5 cm (treatment 4). The efficiency of BSF was assessed in batch mode experiments and the comparative reductions of contaminants were monitored over the control treatment (1) at temperature range of 1–15 °C for 90 days. Standard methods were used to analyze 9 operating, physico-chemicals and biological water quality parameters of pre-and post-water filtration samples after 15 days interval.

The results showed mean 93 ± 2% and 95 ± 3% reductions of Eischerichia coli and total coliforms, respectively, for BSF containing the highest depth of CPBB (5 cm), whereby 100% removal was observed during the treatment time T30 to T45 days. The general affinity sequence for E. coli, total coliforms and turbidity removal in the four treatments was: BSF with 5 cm CPBB > BSF with 2.5 cm CPBB > BSF with 1 cm CPBB > Control. It was concluded that modified BSF with additional adsorbent of locally available CPBB is a very good decentralized treatment option for drinking water.

Cost of Boiling Drinking Water in Urban Zambia

December 1, 2011 · 0 comments

Environ. Sci. Technol., June 8, 2011

Assessing the Microbiological Performance and Potential Cost of Boiling Drinking Water in Urban Zambia

Rebecca Psutka†, Rachel Peletz†, Sandford Michelo‡, Paul Kelly§, and Thomas Clasen*†

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel St., London WC1E 7H, United Kingdom. Environmental Health Team, N’gombe Health Clinic, Lusaka, Zambia Tropical Gastroententerology and Nutrition Research Group at the University of Zambia Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia.

Boiling is the most common method of disinfecting water in the home and the benchmark against which other point-of-use water treatment is measured. In a six-week study in peri-urban Zambia, we assessed the microbiological effectiveness and potential cost of boiling among 49 households without a water connection who reported “always” or “almost always” boiling their water before drinking it. Source and household drinking water samples were compared weekly for thermotolerant coliforms (TTC), an indicator of fecal contamination. Demographics, costs, and other information were collected through surveys and structured observations.

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Use of Clay Ceramic Water Filters and Influences on the General Health in Nigeria

December 1, 2011 · 0 comments

Journal of Health Behavior and Public Health, Vol 1, No 1 (2011)

A Field Study on the Use of Clay Ceramic Water Filters and Influences on the General Health in Nigeria

Anand Plappally, et al.

Field study and surveys were conducted to evaluate interdisciplinary parameters influencing the health of people using ceramic filters for water purification. A total of 52 families were distributed with filters at Eweje Village, Odeda local government area, Ogun State, Nigeria. Surveys contained questions related to hygiene, health, water source and treatment, socio-economic and educational status of people and their use of clay ceramic water filters. Several parameters were studied including time of use of water filter, maintainability, education, societal economics, and social the status of the people using the filters.

There was interdependence between these parameters. Health of the Eweje village community was greatly influenced by the number of people using the filter, the time of filter usage, education, maintainability, access to medical facilities, and economic status. A novel multi parameter multivariate regression approach clearly enumerates the hierarchy of the effects of the influencing variables on the health of Eweje community. Apart from population and time of filter use, access to medical services also influenced health of this rural community.

Solar Disinfection of Drinking Water and Its Impact on Childhood Diarrhea in Rural Cambodia

December 1, 2011 · 0 comments

Environ. Sci. Technol., 2011, 45 (18), pp 7862–7867, August 9, 2011

High Compliance Randomized Controlled Field Trial of Solar Disinfection of Drinking Water and Its Impact on Childhood Diarrhea in Rural Cambodia

Kevin G. McGuigan et al.

Recent solar disinfection (SODIS) studies in Bolivia and South Africa have reported compliance rates below 35% resulting in no overall statistically significant benefit associated with disease rates. In this study, we report the results of a 1 year randomized controlled trial investigating the effect of SODIS of drinking water on the incidence of dysentery and nondysentery diarrhea among children of age 6 months to 5 years living in rural communities in Cambodia. We compared 426 children in 375 households using SODIS with 502 children in 407 households with no intervention. Study compliance was greater than 90% with only 5% of children having less than 10 months of follow-up and 2.3% having less than 6 months.

Adjusted for water source type, children in the SODIS group had a reduced incidence of dysentery, with an incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 0.50 (95% CI 0.27–0.93, p = 0.029). SODIS also had a protective effect against nondysentery diarrhea, with an IRR of 0.37 (95% CI 0.29–0.48, p < 0.001). This study suggests strongly that SODIS is an effective and culturally acceptable point-of-use water treatment method in the culture of rural Cambodia and may be of benefit among similar communities in neighboring South East Asian countries.

Inactivation of Escherichia coli during solar disinfection

November 30, 2011 · 0 comments

Chemosphere. 2011 Nov;85(7):1160-6.

Inactivation and injury assessment of Escherichia coli during solar and photocatalytic disinfection in LDPE bags.

Dunlop PS, Ciavola M, Rizzo L, Byrne JA. Photocatalysis Research Group, Nanotechnology and Integrated BioEngineering Centre, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, BT37 0QB, United Kingdom.

Solar disinfection (SODIS) of Escherichia coli suspensions in low-density polyethylene bag reactors was investigated as a low-cost disinfection method suitable for application in developing countries. The efficiency of a range of SODIS reactor configurations was examined (single skin (SS), double skin, black-backed single skin, silver-backed single skin (SBSS) and composite-backed single skin) using E. coli suspended in model and real surface water.

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Iron oxide amended biosand filters for virus removal

November 30, 2011 · 0 comments

Water Res. 2011 Oct 1;45(15):4501-10.

Iron oxide amended biosand filters for virus removal.

Bradley I, Straub A, Maraccini P, Markazi S, Nguyen TH.

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Center of Advanced Materials for the Purification of Water with Systems, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, United States.

Laboratory studies were performed to determine if the addition of iron oxides throughout biosand filter (BSF) media would increase virus removal due to adsorption. The proposed mechanism is electrostatic adsorption of negatively charged virion particles to positively charged iron oxides formed during the corrosion of zerovalent iron. Initial tests conducted using continuous flow, small-scale glass columns showed high MS2 bacteriophage removal in an iron-amended sand column (5log10) compared to a sand-only column (0.5log10) over 20 pore volumes. Additionally, two experiments with a column containing iron particles revealed 4log10 and 5log10 removal of rotavirus in the presence of 20 mg/L total organic carbon.

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What Point-of-Use Water Treatment Products Do Consumers Use?

November 30, 2011 · 0 comments

PLoS One. 2011;6(10):e26132.

What Point-of-Use Water Treatment Products Do Consumers Use? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial among the Urban Poor in Bangladesh.

Luoto J, Najnin N, Mahmud M, Albert J, Islam MS, Luby S, Unicomb L, Levine DI. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, United States of America.

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that household point-of-use (POU) water treatment products can reduce the enormous burden of water-borne illness. Nevertheless, adoption among the global poor is very low, and little evidence exists on why.

METHODS: We gave 600 households in poor communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh randomly-ordered two-month free trials of four water treatment products: dilute liquid chlorine (sodium hypochlorite solution, marketed locally as Water Guard), sodium dichloroisocyanurate tablets (branded as Aquatabs), a
combined flocculant-disinfectant powdered mixture (the PUR Purifier of Water), and a silver-coated ceramic siphon filter. Consumers also received education on the dangers of untreated drinking water. We measured which products consumers used with self-reports, observation (for the filter), and chlorine tests (for the other products). We also measured drinking water’s contamination with E. coli (compared to 200 control households).

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