by John Oldfield

Created on: March 31, 2010   Last Updated: April 01, 2010

It's springtime 2010 and you are traveling through sub-Saharan Africa, say Malawi, Botswana, South Africa, back up to Uganda, in rural farming communities, in slums, in burgeoning cities. You see farmers supporting their families, workers putting in long days, parents stretching to send their sons and daughters to school and trying to save for a rainy day, presented with opportunities and obstacles similar to those facing many others across the planet.

You also see those same people struggling to escape from two massive public health challenges that for most of the rest of the planet are increasingly rare: a lack of safe drinking water and toilets, and HIV/AIDS. You return to your relatively comfortable home inspired to do something tangible and holistic about both issues.

In trying to figure out the linkages between WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) and HIV/AIDS, your research reveals that the two issues are more closely connected than you realized.

According to USAID, "People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) are at increased risk for diarrheal diseases, and are far more likely to suffer severe and chronic complications if infected. Recent evidence demonstrates the efficacy of hand washing, safe water and sanitation in reducing diarrhea among PLWHA by 25% or more."

That makes sense, and is even more convincing to you than the brutally true soundbite "You can't take antiretrovirals without safe drinking water, because you'll either throw them up or lose them out the other end because of diarrhea."

And on the flipside, USAID continues: "And people living without safe water and sanitation, with the dire poverty that often accompanies it, are likely less educated and more likely to contract HIV." So people living with HIV need safe water and toilets to prevent potentially fatal opportunistic diarrhea, and those people with safe water and toilets are less likely to become the next victims of HIV.

So what do you do?

You start by volunteering with a water and sanitation nonprofit focused on providing HIV/AIDS treatment centers and surrounding communities in Tanzania with safe drinking water, with toilets, and with handwashing stations and soap.

That nonprofit with its holistic approach to both drinking water and HIV works with entire communities to make sure there is 100% handwashing with soap, and zero open defecation, thus reducing the risk of waterborne diarrhea (e.g. cholera) transmission, particularly for those with immune systems compromised by HIV. 

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