A comparative study of sanitation and hygiene of boreholes in open defecation free and open defecation communities in Phalombe district, Malawi
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Date
2020-12-01
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Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
Community-led total sanitation has the potential to improve sanitation and
hygiene in different key areas such as environmental sanitation which include borehole
sanitation. However, it is not clear if being open defecation free affects borehore sanitation and
hygiene.
The main objective of the study was to compare the status of sanitation and hygiene
of boreholes in open defecation free and open defecation communities in Phalombe District.
Thus, this study wanted to establish if sanitation and hygiene of boreholes was dependent on
open defecation free status of an area.
This was a comparative descriptive cross-sectional study. We used checklist to
observe borehole surrounding, questionnaire to collect additional information of the borehole and
we also collected a 100ml water sample for faecal coliform analysis. The study was conducted in
two Traditional Authorities in Phalombe which were purposefully identified: Jenala (open
defecation free) and Nkhulambe (open defecation). We randomly sampled 27 boreholes in
Traditional Authority Jenala and 27 in Traditional Authority Nkhulambe. Our total sample size
was fifty-four (54) boreholes. We used Fisher’s exact test to determine the difference of
sanitation and hygiene of boreholes between these areas.
Cleanliness of borehole surrounding, risk to borehole groundwater bacteriological
contamination, functionality status of water point committees and coverage of contaminated
boreholes were not different in the two Traditional Authorities with p-values of 0.116, 0.136,
0.382 and 0.078 respectively. Despite the many benefits such as increased coverage of pit latrines realized
through implementation of Community Led Total Sanitation approach, it has not improved
sanitation and hygiene parameters of borehole facilities in Phalombe district.