HEALTH IMPACT CAUSED BY POOR WATER AND SANITATION IN DISTRICT ABBOTTABAD

Authors

  • Sadia Jabeen
  • Qaisar Mahmood
  • Sumbal Tariq
  • Bahadar Nawab
  • Noor Elahi

Abstract

Background: Large proportions of people still do not have excess to safe drinking water and propersanitation. Methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to assess the health impacts.Random households were selected. Information was collected from questionnaire through interviewschedule method, group discussion and observation checklist. Results: People rated water and sanitationcondition in urban as: 10% very good, 27% good, 20% bad, 43% very bad, and none of them said wedon’t know. While in rural areas they rated 10% very good, 36% good, 44% bad, 6% very bad, and 4%of them said we don’t know. Water sources in selected urban and rural areas were different, 37% inurban and 68% in rural area depended on bore wells as water source, 22% depended on hand pumps. Inurban areas, the disease ratio was typhoid 20%, hepatitis 13%, diarrhoea 27%, skin infection 23%,stomach problems 53% and allergies 33%. In rural areas, after stomach problems, diarrhoea, hepatitisand typhoid ratio was very high as compared to urban area. In rural community, 70% were unaware ofpoor water and sanitation consequences on health. Conclusion: The water and sanitation condition inurban as well as in rural community is poor but in rural community it is even worse. The drinking waterwas contaminated with E. coli, Enterobacter, Salmonella and Clostridium. This observation wascorrelated with prevalence of many water born diseases especially in rural communities of Abbottabad.Keywords: Safe drinking water, health impacts, environmental awareness, water borne diseases, waterand sanitation.

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Published

2011-03-01

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