Safe Water for Health Now Conference
Global experts in household water treatment and safe storage (HWTS) met at Boston University to discuss challenges and strategies for providing safe water to nearly a billion people.
- BOSTON, Jan 27 2012 -- Nearly 1 billion people are without access to sources of clean water and regularly drink, cook and wash with water collected from untreated rivers or contaminated wells. Waterborne microbes can trigger a cycle of diarrhea and malnutrition that combine to form an unrivaled killer of children. Of the 2 million annual deaths caused by diarrhea, most are children under 5 -- more than are killed by AIDS, malaria and measles combined.The conference was moderated by David J. Olsen and began with remarks by Dean Robert Meenan of the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) that underscored the unifying nature of water, both as a vital resource and a critical area of study:
Dean Meenan: Water is one of the things that galvanizes interest across disciplines, and across BU #safewater- The conference arose from a partnership between the BU Center for Global Health and Development (CGHD) and Vestergaard Frandsen, a European company that specializes in "complex emergency response and disease control products." One of those products is LifeStraw, a small personal filtration unit that allows users to drink microbiallly safe water from untreated sources. It and is designed to fit the company's business model of "humanitarian entrepreneurship." CGHD Director Jonathan Simon emphasized that goal:
- “@BUSPH: CGHD Dir. Jon Simon: Relationship with @vesfra has enabled students to learn that "You can do well and do good." #safewater
- As the company's CEO later said:
- Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, CEO of @vesfra: "We try to harness market power to improve lives of people in the poorest nations" #safewater
- Gunther Fink, an assistant professor of international health economics at the Harvard University School of Public Health, told attendees that the lack of safe water can negatively affect children's health in ways other than diarrhea.
Fink - the lack of safe water in general impairs child health and development - ultimately leads to child mortality #safewater- Fink: #safewater has more of an effect than just reducing diarrhea, lessening overall mortality impact (Mills-Reincke multiplier)
- Fink briefly shared the results of a 2010 study of 172 data sets from 70 countries that found "a robust association between access to water and sanitation technologies and both child morbidity and child mortality." The study also found evidence of the Mills-Reincke Phenomenon, a multiplying effect seen in some widespread disease outbreaks when infections cause more deaths by related ailments.Christopher Gill, an associate professor of international health at BUSPH, explained some of this effect with a breakdown of the myriad ways diarrhea can degrade health.
- Gill: Globally, rotavirus is the most important pathogen causing diarrhea, but it's just one of dozens that can cause illness #safewater
- Gill - Odds of death by diarrhea are increased by 12 fold when a child is malnourished #safewater
- Gill: 90% of diarrhea due to inadequate sanitation and lack of acess to #safewater
- Gill: 52.2 percent of deaths of children under 5 are caused by malnutrition #safewater
- Gill: Diarrheal disease kills rapidly in several ways but can also have lifelong impacts caused by micro-nutrient depletion #safewater
- Gill: Diarrheal disease starts cycle of malnutrition that leads to more diarrhea, more weight loss, and eventually death. #safewater
- Efforts to secure safe water in developing areas have increasingly moved toward HWTS interventions that can be deployed faster and cheaper than most large-scale water supply projects. Michael Steen Lunde of Vestergaard Frandsen introduced a team of BUSPH students -- Meg Meyer, Dominique Chambless and Anya Thomas -- presented a case study of three products currently used in Ghana:
- In Ghana, sachet water, ceramic filters and chlorine tabs all used pretty widely, but still, many people don't treat their water #safewater
- BU Presenters: Most of the money spent on water projects go to point of course projects #safewater
- Estimates: It will take 14 years to provide piped drinking water to every Ghanian. #safewater #ghana
- Household water treatment can improve water quality within minutes, even simple filtration through cloth #safewater
- BUSPH students studied several different methods of HWTS: filtration (Life-Straw), flocculation/santation (PUR) and chlorine tabs #safewater
- Health and productivity savings from HWTS could halve the cost and time of installing full water system in Ghana #safewater
- goal is to ensure that people get safe drinking water, not just improved #safewater
