Tag Archives: Water and Sanitation

New Manuals on NTDs for WASH Practitioners

NTDs, WASH, Water and Sanitation, ,

 

WASHNTDs

Over 50 country-specific versions as well as a global version of “WASH and the Neglected Tropical Diseases: A Manual for WASH Implementers” are available to download at http://www.washntds.org.

By Courtney McGuire

Courtney McGuire works with Children Without Worms and the International Trachoma Initiative, and is one of the authors of “WASH and the NTDs: A Manual for WASH Practitioners.”

Saturday, March 22 is World Water Day—an important occasion not just for the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector, but for the neglected tropical disease (NTD) sector as well. Without WASH, we won’t be able to defeat NTDs such as soil-transmitted helminths, schistosomiasis, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, and Guinea worm. Now, efforts to better coordinate the work of both sectors have new support with resources such as the WASH/NTD toolkit now available on www.washntds.org.

The toolkit—which includes “WASH and the NTDs: A Manual for WASH Implementers,” an upcoming e-course, and the website www.washntds.org–is designed to give WASH practitioners essential knowledge about how their work impacts NTDs. With this knowledge, WASH organizations can better target their activities to communities where NTDs occur, as well as demonstrate the impact of WASH on disease outcomes to help mobilize greater investment in WASH.

There is a growing recognition within the NTD community that WASH must be a part of the planning and implementation process for NTD control efforts. With this toolkit, both the WASH and NTD sectors can explore new opportunities for cross-sectoral partnerships and coordination at the implementation level.

One example of successful WASH/NTD collaboration highlighted in the toolkit comes from Ethiopia, where ORBIS, an eye care organization, and WaterAid worked together to combat blinding trachoma. ORBIS recognized the need to work with WASH partners to implement the SAFE strategy to combat the blinding disease trachoma – which stands for Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial Cleanliness, and Environmental Improvement. In order to help implement the F and E components of the strategy, ORBIS reached out to WaterAid Ethiopia to implement WASH activities in Gama Gafa zone in 2007. A multi-year agreement to bring WASH services to targeted communities has resulted in WASH access increasing from around 4 percent to over 92 percent in target districts as well as reduced levels of infection with trachoma.

In addition to featuring helpful case studies of WASH/NTD collaboration such as this, the toolkit provides techniques and practical materials useful for coordinating on joint monitoring, advocacy, and implementation. Over 50 country-specific versions of the manual are available, allowing users to access maps and specific information about the NTDs that occur in their countries of practice.

The toolkit itself represents an extensive collaborative effort between the WASH and NTD sectors. In December 2012, a diverse group of academics, practitioners, advocates, researchers, and organizations from both sectors came together for a two-day WASH/NTD roundtable discussion at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The discussion led to the production of a framework that would guide the toolkit’s development, which was undertaken by the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) and Children Without Worms (CWW), and funded by the Sightsavers Innovation Fund with support from the  UK government. Numerous organizations from both the WASH and NTD sectors contributed content and feedback to the effort.

On this World Water Day, we invite you to visit www.washntds.org, and to contribute to the conversation by tweeting your stories of collaboration Together we can work towards a world where clean, safe water is abundant for drinking and hygiene, where sanitation services are available for everyone—a world where no one suffers from NTDs.

WASH/NTDs

The NTD and WASH Index Map is a simple way to visualize areas with low WASH coverage and high levels of NTDs, including soil-transmitted helminths, schistosomiasis, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis and Guinea worm. Lighter colors indicate higher WASH access and fewer NTDs. Darker colors indicate a country has lower WASH access and more NTDs. Visit www.washntds.org for more information about how this map was developed and to view the data underlying the map.

Partnering Together on World Water Day

NTDs, WASH, Water and Sanitation,

 

WWD4At least 2.5 billion people around the world lack access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). This means 2.5 billion people are susceptible to diseases like cholera, pneumonia, malaria, diarrheal disease and a group of parasitic and bacterial infections referred to as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) — including blinding trachoma, schistosomiasis (a deadly parasitic disease carried by snails) and intestinal worms. These diseases cause malnutrition, disability, delayed cognitive development and even death. They also increase the likelihood of contracting other diseases such as HIV/ and tuberculosis.

The adverse impact of dirty water and poor hygiene and sanitation reaches far beyond health. The diseases that stem from a lack of WASH keep children out of school and prevent parents from working, thereby decreasing human capital, worker productivity and gross domestic product. However,  by addressing these diseases together with WASH, we can work to alleviate poverty and promote development worldwide.

The consequences of dirty water and poor sanitation are massive, but by joining together on World Water Day, our collective voices can lend urgency to an issue affecting almost one third of the world’s population.

In order to achieve the biggest impact, we’re challenging policy makers and the global community to make connections between multiple global health issues and water and, to think more broadly when it comes to initiating WASH programs.

The U.S. Congress has begun to recognize the close connection between clean, safe water and the overall health of men, women and children across the developing world.  But going a step further to examine how development policies around water and sanitation might broaden to include targeted health components (such as treatment for NTDs) is an important next step. Doing so makes good programmatic and financial sense—a valuable commodity in this budgetary climate.

As members of the global health community, we want to end the needless suffering of the world’s most vulnerable populations due to preventable illness and disease. World Water Day provides all of us with an opportunity to work together to achieve a common goal:  A healthy and more prosperous world for everyone.

To view our World Water Day Infographic in full-size, click the image below:

World Water Day

Why You Shouldn’t Take Your Toilet for Granted on World Toilet Day

schistosomiasis, WASH, Water and Sanitation, , ,

 

Photo by Flickr user SuSanA Secretariat

Photo by Flickr user SuSanA Secretariat

If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you’ve used a toilet recently. It’s also likely you’ve never really considered how fortunate you are to have access to that toilet. Could you imagine what it would be like to leave your house in the middle of the night to relieve yourself outside rather than inside the safety and privacy of a clean bathroom stall?

Today is World Toilet Day and we’re recognizing the 2.5 billion people around the world who do not have access to a toilet (that’s about 1/3 of the world’s population!). The magnitude of this problem is significant.  Without a toilet, people are forced to defecate outside – an act that compromises a person’s dignity, privacy and safety, and leaves billions susceptible to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

Schistosomiasis and intestinal worm infections such as roundworm, hookworm and whipworm are easily spread in communities that do not have access to toilets or sanitation facilities. Schistosomiasis spreads when infected people urinate or defecate close to a water source, contaminating it with the larvae of the parasite. Without proper infrastructure (toilets and city utilities) more than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated — polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas and promoting the spread of NTDs.

Simply walking barefoot around this polluted and contaminated water leaves people exposed to NTDs. As a result, people can be continually re-infected as they work, play, bathe or eat. Children especially have a high risk of contracting these diseases because they often play barefoot outside and put their hands in their mouths without washing them.

According to the World Health Organization, improving water, sanitation and hygiene can reduce trachoma by 27 percent, and improved sanitation could reduce schistosomiasis by as much as 77 percent.

By combining NTD treatment, hygiene education and creative solutions for the 2.5 billion people without access to toilets, we can tackle this problem. Important work is being done by several partner organizations to promote better water, sanitation and hygiene worldwide. The Global Network is also happy to work with former president of Ghana John A. Kufuor to promote long term NTD solutions by integrating mass drug administration with programs for water, sanitation and hygiene – a message the former president drove home at this year’s World Water Week in Stockholm, sweeden.

To learn more about the links between clean water, sanitation and NTDs, watch our quick video . 

Calling All Collaborators to Eliminate Intestinal Worms in Children

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Pictured from left to right: John A. Jufuor, President of the Republic of Ghana (2001-2009) and Global Network NTD Special Envoy; Bill Lin, director of Worldwide Corporate Contributions at Johnson & Johnson; Dr. Lorenzo Savioli, director of the Department of NTDs at WHO; Kathy Spahn, President and CEO of Helen Keller International (HKI); and Richard Besser, chief health and medical editor at ABC News

Pictured from left to right: John A. Kufuor, President of the Republic of Ghana (2001-2009) and Global Network NTD Special Envoy; Bill Lin, director of Worldwide Corporate Contributions at Johnson & Johnson; Dr. Lorenzo Savioli, director of the Department of NTDs at WHO; Kathy Spahn, President and CEO of Helen Keller International (HKI); and Dr. Richard Besser, chief health and medical editor at ABC News

“What we want to do is produce quality of life for the people.” – H.E. John A. Kufuor, President of the Republic of Ghana (2001-2009) and Global Network NTD Special Envoy

We have been anxiously awaiting the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) sixty-eighth kick-off session, “The Post-2015 Development Agenda: Setting the Stage.” Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) have impeded critical breakthroughs in development efforts for too long – plaguing one in six people globally, including half a billion children. While we have the medicine, which costs just 50 cents per person per year, we must garner greater attention, collaboration and political will to see the end of horrible suffering in the world’s most neglected communities.

We are certainly hopeful.

It was fitting that in the height of UNGA meetings, the Global Network, Johnson & Johnson, Children Without Worms, The Task Force for Global Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) co-hosted a conversation to identify innovative ways we can eliminate soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections – one of the key diseases undercutting many Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“Business as usual” simply wouldn’t do! So, our event, “Innovate & Integrate: Multi-sectoral Approaches for Eliminating Intestinal Worms in Children,” set out to explore how and why organizations in the fields of NTDs; water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); nutrition; maternal and child health; and education can collaborate on this issue to ensure lasting advancements.

 

Bill Lin presents on NTDs and WASH

Bill Lin presents on NTDs and WASH

, director of Worldwide Corporate Contributions at Johnson & Johnson, opened with his experience growing up in a rural area outside of Hong Kong. Forever imprinted on him was the constant chanting of “wash your hands” and “don’t put your hands in your mouth.” “You [couldn’t] get clean water just by flipping a faucet.” Bill explained.

Bleak living conditions then and now have caused the perpetual transmission of intestinal worms. Therefore, we must not only distribute medicines to control STH infections but also work with partners to stop them from spreading. “There is a clear need for the education [and] health sectors to work together” to encourage behavioral changes.

, chief health and medical editor at ABC News then asked tough questions to our panelists: H.E. John A. Kufur, former president of the Republic of Ghana (2001-2009); Dr. Lorenzo Savioli, director of the Department of NTDs at WHO; and Ms. Kathy Spahn, President and CEO of Helen Keller International (HKI).

Recognizing that we were talking about “a disease that isn’t killing a lot of people” during a “busy week in New York,” Dr. Besser asked Dr. Savioli, “why does [STH] deserve attention?”

Optimistically, Dr. Lorenzo responded, “We can do something about it. We are eradicating guinea worm, we have the drugs to treat intestinal helminths … we can really interrupt transmission. We can make a difference with the tools we have in our hands.”

President Kufuor chimed in, “our goal is to seek solutions.” Speaking from his experiences in making NTD and WASH advancements as President of Ghana, including tremendous strides in the effort to eliminate guinea worm, President Kufuor noted that behavior change was critical, including “show[ing]  [people] how to boil water.” President Kufuor also stressed that the successes he oversaw were due to implementing policies that educated the public and provided infrastructure, and knowing when to “seek international help.”

Dr. Besser then asked Kathy, “Why does HKI think this is an important problem to tackle?”

Kathy answered that STH infections are “incredibly disabling” and threaten worker productivity, children’s attendance in school and the ability of children to achieve. We’re “really talking about the posterity of the country unless these diseases are tackled,” Kathy said.

Dr. Besser then asked President Kufuor about the widespread impact of intestinal worms. President Kufuor stated, “Worms prevent kids from getting full benefits. … The economy isn’t well when people have worms. … We tackle the problem from the source.”

President Kufuor also touched on a devastating consequence of STH infections: the impact on pregnant women and their babies: “Even with mothers, if they do not look after themselves well with what they eat, what they drink, then the fetus will not mature the way it should.”

Addressing the economic impact, Dr. Besser asked Dr. Savioli, “What evidence is there that these type of control efforts make a difference?” Dr. Savioli recognized that there is huge economic growth occurring in Africa, and that “those countries doing best in the African continent with NTDs are the ones that are doing better economically.”

Asking Kathy about whether it’s “idealistic to think that you can accomplish cross-sector integration,” Dr. Besser said, “Can it happen?” To which Kathy responded, “Nothing can happen unless you work cross-sectorally.”

Wrapping up the interviews, Dr. Besser asked, “If the MDGs don’t list NTDs, what does that mean?”

Dr. Savioli noted, “We need to put pressure to make sure that happens” and that, thanks to “a unique relationship between international organizations, NGOs, endemic states and the private sector,” we have a “historically unique” opportunity “in the history of public health.”

Kathy shared that we need to go beyond the drugs, giving the example of HKI’s partnership with Johnson & Johnson to develop curriculums in education – hand washing, face washing – in Cambodia to realize tremendous successes.

It’s no wonder that after the interviews and audience Q&A, Dr. Besser said, he has “about 50 more questions [he] would love to ask” and that we’re “fortunate to have such different perspectives on this problem.” STH is different in that the solution is known, and that “it’s a problem of will and resources to implement the solution,” Dr. Besser concluded.

In his closing remarks, Dr. Savioli stated, “We have the scientific evidence that when you treat people regularly, the morbidity goes down.” However, “countries have to be at the center of it” because “countries that have done well have performed better” in economic, health and other development markers.

“You deprive the country if you don’t do it,” Kathy closed.

Thanks to all for such an engaging, thought-provoking event! We look forward to seeing how cross-sectoral collaborationcan make a difference in STH control and elimination in children.