Water Access

Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions are amongst the most crucial in humanitarian crises, although the impact of the different WASH interventions on health outcomes remains unclear.

There are increasing numbers of people affected by natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and conflict. Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions are used in nearly all emergency responses to help reduce disease risk.

This evidence synthesis identifies, synthesizes and evaluates existing evidence of the impacts of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions in disease outbreaks in 51 humanitarian contexts in 19 low and middle-income countries.

In September 2016, Médecins Sans Frontières responded to a hepatitis E (HEV) outbreak in Chad by implementing water treatment and hygiene interventions. To evaluate the coverage and use of these interventions, we conducted a cross-sectional study in the community.

We evaluated the ability of UNICEF-designed pot-chlorinators to achieve recommended free residual chlorine (FRC) levels in well water in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, during a cholera outbreak. Thirty wells were randomly selected from six neighbourhoods.

Children under 18 can represent 50% or more of a crisis-affected population.

Children under 18 can represent 50% or more of a crisis-affected population.

When the Asian tsunami struck the Andaman Islands, nearly 7,000 people were relocated in six camps. In spite of the large number of bathing and sanitation facilities built, water and sanitation conditions remained unsatisfactory in four of the camps.

Background. Rapid control of cholera outbreaks is a significant challenge in overpopulated urban settings, and documented results on field interventions are scarce.

Since its relatively recent creation in 2010, the Save the Children (SC) Humanitarian WASH team has steadily increased its integrated support to other SC sectors’ outcomes. In 2017-2018 SC implemented 168 humanitarian WASH interventions across 30 countries.