A study released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that unsafe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene practises in South Africa were responsible for more than 7 000 deaths and more than 640 000 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in children under five.
Titled Burden of disease attributable to unsafe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2019 update, the study presents estimates of the disease burden attributable to unsafe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for 183 WHO member states for 2019, disaggregated by region, age and sex.
These were based on four health outcomes – diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, under-nutrition and soil-transmitted helminthiasis.
One DALY represented the loss of the equivalent of one year of full health, said the WHO, adding that the DALYs for a disease or health condition “are the sum of the years of life lost to due to premature mortality (YLLs) and the years lived with a disability (YLDs) due to prevalent cases of the disease or health condition in a population”.
News24 reports that more than three-quarters of all WASH-attributable (water, access to sanitation, hygiene) deaths were in the African and Southeast Asia regions, while 89% of attributable deaths were recorded in low- and lower-middle income countries.
In the Africa and Southeast Asia regions, the WHO report recorded 510 000 and 593 000 deaths, respectively.
In contrast, just 33 000 deaths attributed to WASH were recorded in the European region.
Diarrhoeal disease accounted for most of the attributable burden, with more than 1m deaths and 55m DALYs.
“The second largest contributor was acute respiratory infections from inadequate hand hygiene, linked to 356 000 deaths and 17m DALYs.
“There were 273 000 deaths from diarrhoea and 112 000 deaths from acute respiratory infections, the top two infectious causes of death for children under five globally,” read the report, which also said that 15 843 people died from diarrhoea and 39 583 from acute respiratory infections in South Africa.
The report’s accompanying data tool showed 23.1% of people in South Africa still used limited sanitation services, that 29.7% of people used basic sanitation services that were not connected to a sewer.
At 53.3%, only slightly more than half of all South Africans had access to handwashing facilities with water and soap. Alarmingly, 89.1% of people did not wash their hands with soap after faecal contact such as toilet use.
In 2019, read the report, “safe WASH services could have prevented the loss of at least 1.4m lives and 74m DALYs – 2.5% of all deaths and 2.9% of all DALYs globally”.
Burden of Disease in SA
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
SA’s great misalignment between development and health – Global Burden of Disease study
The rights and wrongs of the South African health system
SA healthcare on collision course with staffing crisis and growing disease burden
South African children’s height and BMI a cause for concern, say researchers
Poor diet puts SA children at risk of lifestyle diseases – Gqeberha study
UNICEF mortality estimates: Millions of children dying of preventable causes