Description
BACKGROUND: Safe and readily available water and adequate sanitation and hygiene are critical to the provision of essential health services. However, in 2020, 2 billion people – 26 % of the world’s population – had no access to uncontaminated water. Every year over 17 million women in the least developed countries give birth in facilities that are without adequate water and hygiene measures, putting their lives and their babies at risk of preventable infections. Malawi is one of those countries where access to water for healthcare services remains a challenge and has a negative impact on both patients and providers. The aim of the SURG-Water project is to address the poor access to water in health clinics in rural Malawi by testing a new, low-cost technology to treat harvested rainwater using renewable solar UV.
METHODS: SURG-Water's proposed solution centres on the development and demonstration of the potential of a large volume (> 150 L) transparent batch solar water disinfection (SODIS) reactor, deployed to treat harvested rainwater collected on-site in healthcare facilities in Malawi. It will be tested at 2 sites in Southern Malawi in order to be tailored to the needs of district facilities and the rural context. The goal is to ensure that access to a safe water supply is maintained and can withstand extreme weather events and mains water supply breakdowns. A pre-post, mixed-methods study will be used to evaluate the feasibility, adoption and effectiveness of the SURG-Water technology for improving the reliability of clean water supply at district health facilities.
PRELIMINARY FINDINGS: A rapid situation analysis in three district hospitals and three health centres confirmed shortages of water in healthcare facilities in Malawi. In all assessed facilities water was not available uninterruptedly, and in one, water has not been available onsite at all for the last two years leading to the need for pregnant women to carry buckets with water to be used for the delivery of the babies. In the maternity wards there is no water, so expectant mothers fetch it in buckets to meet their sanitary needs. Clinicians compromise infection prevention protocols due to lack of water, leading to an increased risk of infections.
CONCLUSION: In Malawi, there is a currently untapped potential to harvest rainwater and treat it with UV sunlight. Low-cost solutions such as SODIS can help clinicians and patients use the solar-disinfected harvested rainwater to meet their daily water needs related to personal hygiene, infection prevention measures and provision of essential health care. The full results of the evaluation will be available in 2024.
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