This library entry contains background documents for a grant that Ranjiv Khush is leading and which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (further information is also available on the SuSanA discussion forum, see link below).

The title of the grant is also known as Monitoring for Safe Water (MfSW).

The aim of the project is to improve the public health outcomes of water, sanitation and hygiene programs in sub-Saharan Africa by developing evidence-based strategies for efficient, accurate and systematic microbial water quality testing.

Objectives:

The primary public health objective of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) sector is to reduce the fecal-oral transmission of microbial pathogens: a leading cause of childhood disease and death in developing countries. Ideally, the efficacy of technologies and interventions for reducing fecal-oral transmission is tested prior to widespread implementation by measuring their experimental impacts on relevant indicators, such as microbial water quality and child diarrhea. Similarly, proving their ‘real world’ effectiveness requires accurate measurement of public health outcomes after widespread implementation.

Contaminated drinking water is a primary exposure route for fecal pathogens, so microbial water quality should provide another obvious, objective public health indicator for WaSH programs. Water quality information from developing countries, however, is also limited and measurements are not taken in national household surveys. Consequently, the WaSH sector lacks adequate public health indicators for assessing progress, targeting interventions, and evaluating sustainability.

The primary objective of MfSW, therefore, is to identify the causal factors that prevent microbial water testing from meeting regulatory requirements in certain Sub-saharan African countries that will guide both local water management and broader WaSH sector efforts at improving sanitation in these countries and beyond.

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Documents available for download below:

1 - Rahman, Z., Aleru, L., Bonham, M., Peletz, R., Khush, R. (2013): Delivering water, sanitation and hygiene services - Constraints to microbial water quality testing. 36th WEDC International Conference, Nakuru, Kenya

Bibliographic information

Various authors (2015). Cash on delivery for water quality testing Various documents on results from research grant Aquaya

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Fundamental research and engineeringEnglish

Related Countries

EthiopiaGuineaKenyaSenegalUgandaZambia

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