Household water treatment improves the quality of drinking water by using chlorine-based solutions that are effective, easy-to-use and inexpensive. Chlorine-based water treatment significantly reduces the incidence of diarrheal disease, which is often deadly for children under five.
We currently have national-scale water treatment programs to prevent water-borne illnesses in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
We deliver water treatment products using multiple channels, including:
- Community health workers.
- Trained public and private health providers.
- Private pharmacies.
- Small neighborhood boutiques.
- Free distribution in emergencies, such as outbreaks of cholera.
Our household water treatment interventions address water quality issues where they are needed most, and are part of an integrated water, sanitation and hygiene strategy that includes hygiene and sanitation interventions.
In addition to making clean water available to households on a daily basis, we respond to natural disasters and other crisis situations around the globe.
Our commitment to use effective and efficient interventions combined with our strong procurement and distribution capacity allow for swift help when countries are faced with emergency situations.
Through Greenstar Social Marketing Limited, our network member in Pakistan, we collaborated with numerous aid agencies to help those affected by the severe 2005 earthquake access safe water.
In 2008, we responded to the cholera outbreak in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, with point-of-use water treatment tablets and hygiene promotion through interpersonal communications activities. We distributed more than 300,000 tablets within a 3 day period while performing a door-to-door hygiene promotion and household water treatment campaign.
In response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, we secured water purification solutions to provide survivors with 30 million liters of safe drinking water. As the rainy season approached shortly after the earthquake, the risk of malaria, dengue and water-borne disease increased. We mobilized our existing communications network to target highly concentrated populations with key disease prevention messages during that critical period.
Household water treatment: We improve access to clean water by promoting and distributing point-of-use household water treatment products.
- Clorin Clean Drinking Water Animated TV Spot – Zambia
An animated TV spot for Clorin, a household water treatment product sold through social marketing, by the Society for Family Health, PSI's affiliate in Zambia.
- Providing Safe Drinking Water in Benin
Overview of USAID’s Point-of-Use Water Disinfection and Zinc Treatment (POUZN) project being implemented in Benin by PSI and Abt Associates.
- PSI’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programs
PSI’s mission in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) is to improve the health of low-income households in the developing world through increased access to and use of WASH products and services, such as household water treatment, latrines and soap.
- PSI Diarrhea Health Impact Estimation Model
The malaria model uses a simple prescriptive algorithm to estimate the DALYs averted from two interventions water treatment (7 products) and ORS (3 products), allowing for different levels of cholera prevalence within a country. Country and regional epidemiological estimates values are used, but the structure exists within the calculator to later incorporate more country level data.