World Water Day 2015

In southern Africa, the limited accessibility to clean water causes significant challenges for those suffering with HIV. In the build-up to World Water Day, taking place on 22 March, Louisa Gosling from WaterAid sheds light on the organisation’s efforts to combat these challenges.

Imagine living with HIV and all the health issues and vulnerability it entails.

Now imagine that reality without having access to safe drinking water, a basic and hygienic toilet, and a way to keep yourself and your surroundings clean.

Unfortunately this is the reality for many in southern Africa, where an estimated 12.7 million people are living with HIV. Almost two thirds of the southern Africa population – 174 million people – do not have access to a basic toilet, and more than 100 million do not have safe water.

Water restriction: A dangerous situation

For Regis Sicheuunga, 48, in Hambale, Zambia, a diagnosis of HIV was complicated by the great difficulty of finding clean water close to home.

“Before we had the hand-pump, I was given containers and chlorine by the hospital to keep boiled water because it is so important. I got the water from the well, it was a long way… I’d get up at 3am because if you were late the water would be gone,” she told WaterAid researchers before a new borehole and hand-pump was installed in her community.

In a region with such a high prevalence of HIV and poor water and sanitation coverage, it may seem obvious that the provision of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) should be essential to support people who are HIV positive to live healthy and dignified lives. We carried out a study in partnership with fellow non-governmental organisation SAfAIDS “An integrated approach to HIV and water, sanitation and hygiene in Southern Africa", to find out how well services for HIV and WASH were being integrated in Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia, and to identify ways to improve the situation.

When you consider that taking ARV drugs alone requires 1.5 litres of safe, clean water each day, and staying clean and healthy requires up to 100 litres a day, it only makes sense to integrate these services. A person living with HIV needs clean, safe water for drinking, food preparation, laundry and washing, and for mothers with HIV, for safely formula-feeding babies.

Many life-threatening opportunistic infections are caused by poor sanitation and poor hygiene. Diarrhoea affects 90% of people living with HIV, and nearly all of these cases (88%) are linked to a lack of safe water, basic toilets and good hygiene.

Diarrhoea also makes ARV drugs less effective, by reducing the body’s ability to absorb nutrients from food and medicine.