The Association between Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Practices and the Occurrence of Childhood Pneumonia in Abia State, Nigeria

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VI, Issue VI, June 2019 | ISSN 2321–2705

The Association between Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Practices and the Occurrence of Childhood Pneumonia in Abia State, Nigeria

Ugo U. Enebeli^1*, Agwu N. Amadi¹, Okechukwu K. Iro²

¹Department of Public Health, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria.
²Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Abia State University, Abia State, Nigeria

Abstract – Poor water, sanitation and hygiene practices directly and indirectly impact on the dynamics of endemic childhood diseases. This study was thus conducted to assess association between the water, sanitation and hygiene practices and the dynamics of endemic childhood pneumonia in Abia State. One thousand two hundred and nine caregivers of children 0-5 years were randomly recruited with one child from each household. The care givers were administered the 2006 UNICEF and WHO harmonized checklist while the children were screened for pneumoniausing community based diagnoses. The children that had cough or difficult breathing were further screened for pneumonia using respiratory timer counts. Prevalence of pneumonia among the children was 18.4%, and this was statistically significantly associated with access to water, sanitation practices and personal hygiene of their caregivers (ρ˂0.05). This study concludes that poor access to water, and poor sanitation and hygiene practices of care givers are directly related to the prevalence of pneumonia among their children. It is hereby recommended that access to water, proper sanitation and hygiene practices should be scaled up in Abia State in order to improve the overall health of the children 0-5 years.

Keywords – water; sanitation; hygiene; caregivers; children; households; pneumonia

I. INTRODUCTION

Globally, pneumonia remains the leading cause of childhood death from infectious diseases (UNICEF, 2018). In 2016, pneumonia accounted for 16% of all deaths in children under five globally (Watkins & Sridhar, 2018). Developing countries have the heaviest burden of childhood pneumonia, and half of all deaths occur in only five countries including Nigeria (Howie & Murdoch, 2018). According to (UNICEF, 2019), pneumonia accounted for 18.6% of under-five deaths in Nigeria in 2017. In Abia State, 10% of childhood deaths have been attributed to pneumonia (Nwafor, Abali, & Nnoli, 2014). It is estimated that about 1,920 children die from pneumonia every year in Abia State (FMOH, 2018). Pneumonia is preventable and treatable (UNICEF, 2018). Unfortunately, childhood pneumonia is relatively neglected and recently labelled ‘a global cause without champions’ (Watkins & Sridhar, 2018).

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