HIV/AIDS and the water sector

Elias is bed-ridden and extremely thin and weak. His family looks after him, with help from a home-based care group which provides him with food parcels and medicines. The family relies on the old age pension of his mother. His mother struggles to clean him when he soils himself, as he cannot move from his bed. His mother has a friend who brings water, but there is seldom enough. They rely on river water which they do not believe is clean or safe to drink.

Quote from a MVULA case study on people living with HIV/AIDS

What has HIV/AIDS to do with water, sanitation and hygiene? The virus is not transmitted through water, latrines, flies or soiled hands….

Yet there ARE links with sanitation, hygiene and water:

• Good water supply, sanitation and hygiene are even more important to HIV/AIDS families. They help infected people to stay healthy longer and provide longer for their families
• They are needed for home care. They lower the burdens for patients and caregivers and bring dignity. For example, over half of HIV patients develop chronic diarrhoea. Imagine having no latrine, no water…
• HIV/AIDS affects especially poor people. Productive uses of water mean much needed income for families who lose other sources of livelihoods.
• HIV/AIDS affects water supplies and sanitation and hygiene programmes and their organisations

This page gives you access to:

• A Thematic Overview Paper showing the many links between HIV/AIDS and water supply, sanitation, and hygiene in communities and organisations, giving information and contacts;
• A Case Study on how HIV/AIDS patients in two communities are affected by the local water and sanitation conditions and the lack of good hygiene education;
• A Powerpoint presentation which you can use for awareness raising and training of staff, management and policy makers in the health and water sectors;
• Guidance notes on how you can use the powerpoint;
• Links to a quiz for training sessions;
• A 4-page Factsheet with the main facts and some selected references prepared under WELL;
• A Case Study from Kenya on how poverty reduction is linked to water supply, sanitation, hygiene and HIV/AIDS, by John Mbugua.

The documents have been written for managers, middle level staff in the water and health sectors, and policy makers. They can be used to get information, raise awareness, start discussions, begin training. But perhaps most important: they can help break the silence on what the disease does to the water sector and what the water sector can do about it.