The effect of an educational intervention on the microbiological quality of water stored in households

Abstract

This study investigated whether a water-handling hygiene education programme could improve the health-related microbiological quality of container water stored and used in households in a dense urban settlement in the Free State Province. Previous studies in the area indicated that stored container water became contaminated during the process of fetching from communal standpipes and then storing and handling the water at home, which exposed the study population to a potential risk of microbiological infection. A water-hygiene education programme was implemented together with a health-related microbiological water quality assessment programme. Members of selected households participated in a series of domestic water-handling hygiene education training sessions over a period of eight months and the quality of their stored water monitored for improvement in tandem over the same period. The results were compared to those of similar tests done during previous studies in the same area.

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