Diarrheal Diseases

Innovations in Water and Sanitation – Helping People Living with HIV to Access Better Water and Sanitation Facilities

  • Source:
  • Catholic Relief Services

  • Summary:
  • A healthy environment is crucial for maintaining the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS, and for the success of home-based care. The WHO estimates that 85 to 90 percent of diarrheal illnesses in developing countries can be attributed to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene practices, such as handwashing with soap, treatment and safe storage of water, and safe feces disposal. Proper care requires not only safe drinking water, but also larger quantities of water for hygiene and sanitation purposes, and because of physical limitations caused by HIV/ AIDS, the design of water and sanitation facilities greatly influences effective access to these services. Unfortunately, water and sanitation services are extremely limited in many of the countries most affected by the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.

  • Keywords:
  • Accessing Water Diarrheal Diseases Evidence Base Handwashing (Hand Washing) Home-Based Care Household Water Treatment & Storage Innovation People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal
  • Community Health Workers in WASH-HIV Integration

    • Source:
    • Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation & C-Change/FHI 360. 2011.

    • Summary:
    • Community health workers (CHWs) — the core of the community strategy — are expected to mobilize and energize communities to take charge of their own health. The approach used in this Training Guide harnesses capacity for improving WASH practices by having CHWs negotiate small doable actions that individuals and families can take to improve their behavior incrementally while working toward an ideal practice. This approach is more likely to lead to sustained behavior change by ensuring that families identify feasible but effective actions that they can practice correctly and consistently, thereby improving the likelihood that the practice will be maintained over time. It also supports incremental change; once smaller successes are realized, families feel ready to take on bigger challenges.

  • Keywords:
  • Community-Based Care Diarrheal Diseases Handwashing (Hand Washing) Household Water Treatment & Storage People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal Small Doable Actions Training Resources
  • Diarrhea Prevention in People Living with HIV: An Evaluation of a Point-of-Use Water Quality Intervention in Lagos, Nigeria

    • Source:
    • Barzilay EJ et al. 2011. AIDS Care March 2011. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    • Summary:
    • Diarrhea is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Africa. The impact of a point-of-use water chlorination and storage intervention on diarrheal-disease risk in a population of HIV-infected women in Lagos, Nigeria was evaluated. Point-of-use water treatment was associated with a reduced risk of diarrhea in PLHIV. Regular water treatment was required to achieve health benefits.

  • Keywords:
  • Diarrheal Diseases Household Water Treatment & Storage
  • Use of Nutritional and Water Hygiene Packages for Diarrhoeal Prevention Among HIV-Exposed Infants in Lilongwe, Malawi: An Evaluation of a Pilot Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission Post-Natal Care Service

    • Source:
    • Xue J et al. 2010. Trop Med Int Health October 2010. University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

    • Summary:
    • In Malawi, free fortified porridge and water hygiene packages were offered to mothers to encourage frequent post-natal visits and to reduce diarrheal rates in infants on replacement feeding. Participant retention and infant health outcome were assessed. The majority of participants adhered to their scheduled visits and retention was favorable, possibly because of the introduction of hygiene and nutrition incentives. The infant diarrheal rate was low, suggesting benefits of regular medical care with hygiene package usage and reliable replacement feeding options.

  • Keywords:
  • Breast Feeding/Infant Feeding Diarrheal Diseases Food Hygiene Formative Research Household Water Treatment & Storage Journal Articles Nutrition People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) PMTCT (Preventing Mother to Child Trans.)
  • Programming Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Activities in U.S. Government Country Operational Plans (COPs): A Toolkit for FY2010 Planning

    • Source:
    • HIP. 2010. USAID

    • Summary:
    • The toolkit was developed to provide people working in the HIV/AIDS field—especially USG PEPFAR Coordinators and USAID HIV field staff —with a set of flexible materials to raise their own understanding and help them facilitate better programming for WASH in PEPFAR Country Operational Plans. The aim is to help people at all levels to more effectively prevent diarrheal disease and other unnecessary illnesses, using simple, effective, low-input strategies that may have not been addressed by PEPFAR programs in the past. The emphasis of this programming guidance is to “mainstream” water, sanitation and hygiene interventions—to make them a regular part of all behavior change and education activities in HIV/AIDS programs.

  • Keywords:
  • Best Practices and Lessons Learned Diarrheal Diseases Handwashing (Hand Washing) Household Water Treatment & Storage PEPFAR Programming Guidance Sanitation/Feces Disposal Training Resources
  • Case-Control Study to Determine Risk Factors for Diarrhea Among Children During a Large Outbreak in a Country with a High Prevalence of HIV Infection

    • Source:
    • Arvelo A et al. 2010. Int J Infect Dis November 2010. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    • Summary:
    • Between January and March 2006, over 35,000 diarrhea cases and 532 deaths were reported among children under the age of five in Botswana. During this diarrhea outbreak, in a country with a national program to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, ill children were less likely to be breastfed and more likely to have been exposed to environmental factors associated with fecal contamination. These findings underscore the importance of adequate access to safe water, sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition education among populations using breast milk substitutes.

  • Keywords:
  • Breast Feeding/Infant Feeding Diarrheal Diseases Evidence Base Handwashing (Hand Washing) Household Water Treatment & Storage Journal Articles PMTCT (Preventing Mother to Child Trans.) Sanitation/Feces Disposal
  • Apparent Impact of Enteric Pathogens in Drinking Water and Implications for the Relentless Saga of HIV/ AIDS in South Africa

    • Source:
    • Momba MNB, Madoroba E, Obi CL. 2010. Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa.

    • Summary:
    • Worldwide there is a strong association between diarrhoeal diseases and contaminated water. South Africa is no exception. The majority of households in developing countries, the epicentre of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, obtain their water from polluted and contaminated sources. Diarrhoeic pathogens have been more frequently isolated from stool samples of HIV/AIDS patients, and from their respective household drinking water, than from HIV-negative control groups. For these reasons, there are links between the quality of water, diarrhoea and HIV/AIDS, despite the fact that these aspects, at first glance, do not seem connected.

  • Keywords:
  • Diarrheal Diseases Evidence Base Household Water Treatment & Storage People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV)
  • Home-Based Care for Reducing Morbidity and Mortality in People Infected with HIV/AIDS

    • Source:
    • Young T, Busgeeth K. 2010. The Cochrane Library, 2010, Issue 1. South African Cochrane Centre, Medical Research Council, Tygerberg, South Africa. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria, South Africa

    • Summary:
    • Intensive home-based nursing significantly improved self-reported knowledge of HIV and medications, self-reported adherence and differences in the refill of pharmacy drugs. Home-based safe water systems reduced diarrhea frequency and severity among persons with HIV in Africa.

  • Keywords:
  • Diarrheal Diseases Evidence Base Home-Based Care Household Water Treatment & Storage People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV)
  • Trials of Improved Practice: Determining Feasible Water and Feces Management Small Doable Actions for HIV Programs in Ethiopia. February 2009.

    • Source:
    • USAID & HIP. 2009.

    • Summary:
    • Summarizes trials of improved practices (TIPs) research conducted in Ethiopia to develop simple, feasible actions for use by home-based care workers for diarrhea and water management in households affected by HIV/AIDS.

  • Keywords:
  • Diarrheal Diseases Formative Research Home-Based Care Household Water Treatment & Storage Programming Guidance Sanitation/Feces Disposal Small Doable Actions
  • Integration of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene into HIV Programs: Lessons from Malawi

    • Source:
    • Senefeld S, Powell A. 2009. Catholic Relief Services

    • Summary:
    • Adequate clean water, improved sanitation infrastructure, and better hygiene may significantly improve health outcomes for people living with HIV (PLHIV) in resource-poor settings. Catholic Relief Services Malawi, with support from the World Health Organization and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), implemented a pilot project to identify household scale changes or actions that could improve WSH conditions for PLHIV. An evaluation showed substantial changes in six targeted behaviors and a reduction in the overall prevalence of diarrhea, suggesting that this is an effective approach to ameliorating WSH conditions for those affected by HIV.

  • Keywords:
  • Accessing Water Diarrheal Diseases Evaluations Formative Research Handwashing (Hand Washing) Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal