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Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013–2018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted important needs in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services and standard practices for infection prevention and control in sub-Saharan Africa. We assessed the availability of WASH and standard precautions for infection prevention in health facil...

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Autores principales: Kanyangarara, Mufaro, Allen, Savannah, Jiwani, Safia S, Fuente, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8231746/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34172045
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06515-z
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author Kanyangarara, Mufaro
Allen, Savannah
Jiwani, Safia S
Fuente, David
author_facet Kanyangarara, Mufaro
Allen, Savannah
Jiwani, Safia S
Fuente, David
author_sort Kanyangarara, Mufaro
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted important needs in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services and standard practices for infection prevention and control in sub-Saharan Africa. We assessed the availability of WASH and standard precautions for infection prevention in health facilities across 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as inequalities by location (rural/urban) and managing authority (public/private). Data from health facility surveys conducted between 2013 and 2018 in 18 sub-Saharan African countries were used to estimate the access to an improved water source within 500 m, an improved toilet, soap and running water or alcohol-based hand rub, and standard precautions for infection prevention at health facilities. Rural-urban differences and public-private differences in access to services were calculated. We also compared population level access to health facility access to services. RESULT: Overall, 16,456 health facilities from 18 countries were included. Across countries, an estimated 88 % had an improved water source, 94 % had an improved toilet, 74 % had soap and running water or alcohol-based hand rub, and 17 % had standard precautions for infection prevention available. There was wide variability in access to water, sanitation and hygiene services between rural and urban health facilities and between public and private facilities, with consistently lower access in both rural and public facilities. In both rural and urban areas, access to water, sanitation and hygiene services was ubiquitously better at health facilities than households. CONCLUSIONS: Availability of WASH services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa has improved but remains below the global target of 80 % in many countries. Ensuring adequate access to WASH services and enforcing adherence to safety and hygiene practices in health facilities will be essential to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
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spelling pubmed-82317462021-06-28 Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013–2018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission Kanyangarara, Mufaro Allen, Savannah Jiwani, Safia S Fuente, David BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted important needs in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services and standard practices for infection prevention and control in sub-Saharan Africa. We assessed the availability of WASH and standard precautions for infection prevention in health facilities across 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as inequalities by location (rural/urban) and managing authority (public/private). Data from health facility surveys conducted between 2013 and 2018 in 18 sub-Saharan African countries were used to estimate the access to an improved water source within 500 m, an improved toilet, soap and running water or alcohol-based hand rub, and standard precautions for infection prevention at health facilities. Rural-urban differences and public-private differences in access to services were calculated. We also compared population level access to health facility access to services. RESULT: Overall, 16,456 health facilities from 18 countries were included. Across countries, an estimated 88 % had an improved water source, 94 % had an improved toilet, 74 % had soap and running water or alcohol-based hand rub, and 17 % had standard precautions for infection prevention available. There was wide variability in access to water, sanitation and hygiene services between rural and urban health facilities and between public and private facilities, with consistently lower access in both rural and public facilities. In both rural and urban areas, access to water, sanitation and hygiene services was ubiquitously better at health facilities than households. CONCLUSIONS: Availability of WASH services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa has improved but remains below the global target of 80 % in many countries. Ensuring adequate access to WASH services and enforcing adherence to safety and hygiene practices in health facilities will be essential to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission. BioMed Central 2021-06-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8231746/ /pubmed/34172045 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06515-z Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Kanyangarara, Mufaro
Allen, Savannah
Jiwani, Safia S
Fuente, David
Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013–2018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission
title Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013–2018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission
title_full Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013–2018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission
title_fullStr Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013–2018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission
title_full_unstemmed Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013–2018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission
title_short Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013–2018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission
title_sort access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-saharan africa 2013–2018: results of health facility surveys and implications for covid-19 transmission
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8231746/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34172045
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06515-z
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