A study on household water treatment in Angola indicates a need for more education and marketing of safe water practices and products, like Certeza solution.
LUANDA, Angola, June 17, 2008 (IPS) – A survey of Angolan households has revealed less than half of caregivers always treat water with a reliable method before giving it to children. And one third of those interviewed by Population Services International (PSI) believes water is blessed by God and does not need to be sterilised before use.
The study, carried out in June 2007, but only published officially this month, looked in detail at the motivators for treating water in Angola and opportunities and abilities which contributed to this behaviour. More than 1,650 households with children under five in the capital of Luanda without piped water in their homes took part in the PSI questionnaire.
Certainly the need for this study can be seen in some of its results: more than a quarter of children in the surveyed households had experienced diarrhoea (usually caused by water-borne bacteria) in the 15 days before completing the questionnaire and 7 percent of respondents reported a case of cholera in their household in the last 2 years.
The results have since been used to formulate a targeted marketing and educational strategy. The researchers noted that knowledge about safe water, water treatment and causes of diarrhoea and cholera was very high.
For example, 87 percent of respondents knew clean-looking water might not be safe to drink, 94 percent knew treating water with chlorine makes it safe to drink, 95 percent knew that not washing hands before eating causes diarrhoea and 99 percent knew that drinking contaminated water causes cholera.
But despite this high knowledge level — attributable to intensive government media and house-to-house communications since the start of a cholera outbreak in Luanda in February 2006 — just 12 percent of those quizzed said they consistently practice the eight key water treatment and hand-washing behaviours, things like washing hands before eating and after using the toilet.
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