Providing safe water and hygiene in emergency settings

2010 was a very demanding year for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) water and sanitation specialists. The organization's biggest water and sanitation intervention was conducted during the flood disaster in Pakistan. There, during the peak of the intervention, 698,000 litres of safe drinking water were supplied daily to 46,500 people and 645 latrines were built. In Haiti, MSF provided safe drinking water and improved hygiene after the devastating earthquake of Jan. 12. At the peak of this intervention, 187,000 litres of water were purified daily for 12,400 people. Aid was also provided to other countries hit by natural disasters or epidemics.

In Haiti, the water and sanitation teams also participated in the construction or rehabilitation of five large hospitals (of more than 100 beds each) and five health centres. MSF also lobbied the UN aid system, other nongovernmental organizations and the authorities to improve and coordinate their response in the areas of water, sanitation and non-food item distributions (non-food items can include essential things such as soap, blankets, and water containers).

Cholera outbreaks

In addition to these activities, our water and sanitation specialists worked in cholera outbreaks in Haiti, Nigeria, Chad and Papua New Guinea, where they were mainly involved in the construction and maintenance of cholera treatment facilities.

Disease outbreak alarms in Uganda and Nigeria

Water and sanitation specialists were very involved in two outbreaks in Nigeria and in Uganda, which at first seemed to be some kind of viral hemorrhagic fever. In treating patients with this disease, elaborate protective clothing needs to be worn and carefully isolated wards are required. The water and sanitation specialists were involved in organizing and setting up treatment centres. Eventually, the July outbreak of suspected Lassa fever in Nigeria was not confirmed, while the November to December outbreak in Uganda was identified as yellow fever. Both events did however make it clear that MSF was short of staff trained in handling these very specialized disease outbreaks, particularly when response staff are stretched thin by other large emergencies such as the cholera outbreak in Haiti.

Waste water plant in Port-au-Prince

Towards the end of the year, the water and sanitation team in Haiti struggled with a problem relatively new to MSF: the fact that waste water from its cholera treatment centres in Port-au-Prince could not be safely discharged anywhere due to the crowded urban environment and also needed to be extensively treated. In the Delmas 33 cholera treatment centre, the MSF team tested new methods for extensive water purification, which yielded positive results. A treatment facility was built on the same site. At the same time, other treatment options were explored, in order to find out if more effective or simpler methods were feasible.