Africa Health Research Institute, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
School of Nursing and Public Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Elife. 2018 Feb 20;7:e33065. doi: 10.7554/eLife.33065.
Recent work has estimated that sub-Saharan Africa could lose US$3.5 billion of economic productivity every year as a result of schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis. One of the main interventions to control schistosomiasis is the provision of safe water to limit the contact with infected water bodies and break the cycle of transmission. To date, a rigorous quantification of the impact of safe water supplies on schistosomiasis is lacking. Using data from one of Africa's largest population-based cohorts, we establish the impact of the scale-up of piped water in a typical rural South African population over a seven-year time horizon. High coverage of piped water in the community decreased a child's risk of urogenital schistosomiasis infection eight-fold (adjusted odds ratio = 0.12, 95% CI 0.06-0.26, p<0.001). The provision of safe water could drive levels of urogenital schistosomiasis infection to low levels of endemicity in rural African settings.
最近的研究估计，由于血吸虫病和土壤传播性蠕虫病，撒哈拉以南非洲地区每年可能损失 35 亿美元的经济生产力。控制血吸虫病的主要干预措施之一是提供安全用水，以限制与受感染水体的接触，并打破传播循环。迄今为止，对于安全供水对血吸虫病的影响还缺乏严格的量化。我们利用来自非洲最大的基于人群的队列之一的数据，在七年的时间内确定了在典型的南非农村人口中扩大管道水供应的影响。社区中较高的管道水覆盖率使儿童患尿路血吸虫病感染的风险降低了八倍（调整后的优势比=0.12，95%CI0.06-0.26，p<0.001）。提供安全用水可以使尿路血吸虫病感染率在农村非洲地区达到低流行水平。
