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KAMPALA, Uganda, Dec. 16, 2004 — A product that will allow low income people to purify their water at home has been launched in Uganda, where diarrhea is a major cause of illness and death in children under five and an estimated 50% of the population do not have access to safe water, by Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), nonprofit organization Population Services International (PSI) and the professional association International Council of Nurses (ICN). The PUR Purifier of Water, developed by P&G in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), uses the same ingredients as municipal water treatment facilities, but is packaged in a sachet allowing the user to treat water easily and affordably in the home. Each sachet treats 10 liters of water. PSI has designed a series of launches in 17 districts throughout Uganda through January 2005 to increase awareness of safe water and PUR via educational entertainment activities including dramas and interactive product demonstrations. PSI will market the product at a price affordable to low income and at-risk populations and implement a behavior change communication campaign to promote home water treatment and diarrhea prevention strategies such as hand-washing with soap and safe water storage. A critical component of the project is the ICN training of Ugandan nurses and midwives so that they, in turn, may educate other health providers and their local communities. ICN and its member association in Uganda, the Uganda National Association for Nurses & Midwives, are coordinating targeted outreach and product distribution with nurses and midwives as well as outreach to orphans. In rural and urban areas, the diarrheal episode prevalence rate is 26.2% and 21.3% respectively. Research conducted in 2001 found that diarrhea was responsible for 20% of under-5 morbidity and mortality in Uganda. Simple, low-cost interventions at the household and community level are capable of dramatically improving the microbial quality of household stored water and reducing risks of diarrhea disease and death, according to the World Health Organization. Point-of-use water treatment approaches like PUR have consistently shown reductions of 30-50% in diarrhea disease, with even higher reductions during water-borne epidemics. The efficacy of PUR has been proven through a series of laboratory and clinical studies in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Kenya and Pakistan, and the WHO has recognized PUR as an effective technology for household water treatment. The project is assisting the government of Uganda in achieving its goal of increasing safe water access to 75% of the population by 2010. Currently, only 2% of Ugandans lives in homes that have piped water, and less than 1% has access to piped water from public sources. The remaining 97% of the population is dependent on water from village wells, streams, rivers, lakes and boreholes. According to WHO and UNICEF studies, an estimated 50% of Ugandans have no access to safe water and the proportion in northern Uganda is even higher due to regional instability.
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