Tropical Cyclone Idai made landfall March 15, 2019, it pummeled Mozambique’s fourth-largest city Beira and three neighboring provinces, leaving only 10 percent of the port city intact. An unprecedented cyclone in scope and scale, the storm’s flooding and devastation affected nearly 2 million people in three countries (including Zimbabwe and Malawi) and led to the deaths of approximately 960 people.
Access to clean water and improved sanitation is fundamental to preventing the spread of water-borne disease like cholera. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Haiti supports the Haitian National Directorate of Potable Water and Sanitation to build and monitor essential water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure and strengthen the national water and sanitation workforce. This infographic details some of their efforts
The WATSAN project began in December 2017 with the primary goal to reduce the prevalence of cholera and other waterborne diseases by laying foundation for a long-term, sustained effort to increase access to safe drinking water and sanitation in Haiti – this improving the health and well-being of Haitians. Specifically, WATSAN seeks to increase access to sustainable water supply services; increase access to sustainable sanitation services; and strengthen the enabling environment for sustainable delivery, operation, and maintenance of WASH services.
Haiti’s vulnerability to natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and flooding have complicated efforts to repair, expand, and sustain access to safe water and sanitation. The low levels of water and sanitation services and poor hygiene practices contributed substantially to the severity and rapid spread of the cholera epidemic in 2010. Hurricane Matthew in 2016 further compromised the fragile WASH sector in affected areas.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been working with Haiti’s National Potable Water and Sanitation Directorate (DINEPA in French) to improve drinking water quality in Haiti's rural areas. This work, which began after the start of the cholera outbreak in Haiti in 2010 and continued through 2018, is aligned with the Global Water Strategy Strategic Objective 1: to increase sustainable access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, as well as Strategic Objective 4: to strengthen water sector governance and institutions.
It is one of the world’s most popular water purification tablets. Thanks to the work of local distribution partners around the world, Aquatabs, produced by a private company called Medentech, helped treat more than 11 billion liters of water globally in 2016.
This fact sheet provides basic facts about cholera, its transmission, its treatment, and how handwashing and other critical water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) measures can play a role in its prevention.
This Sector Assessment presents current conditions in Haiti’s water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector with particular focus on rural areas and cholera hot spots and makes recommendations on future USAID programming in the sector.
