{"id":3721,"date":"2008-09-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psi2030.wpengine.com\/point-of-use-water-treatment-tablets-now-available-in-sudan\/"},"modified":"2018-05-22T22:27:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T22:27:52","slug":"point-of-use-water-treatment-tablets-now-available-in-sudan","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/news\/point-of-use-water-treatment-tablets-now-available-in-sudan\/","title":{"rendered":"Point-of-Use Water Treatment Tablets Now Available in Sudan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SudanWater.JPG\"
\nMr. Christopher Datta, U.S. Consul
\nGeneral for Juba, Southern Sudan,
\ndemonstrates how to properly wash
\nhands under the guidance of PSI
\nSudan Community Outreach Officer
\nCarol Aporo at the Sept. 2 launch
\nof WaterGuard.<\/div>\n

JUBA, Sudan, September 2, 2008 \u2014 With the support of USAID and the Ministry of Health of the Government of Southern Sudan, PSI\/Sudan officially launched WaterGuard chlorine tablets, a product that has the potential to save countless vulnerable children from life-threatening diarrhea and cholera.<\/p>\n

In-home treatment of water from all sources is critical in a country lacking infrastructure as a result of a 21-year civil war. Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death in children under five in Sub-Saharan Africa and contributes heavily to the under-five child mortality rate of 250 per 1,000 lives. Less than 60% of people in all of Sudan have access to improved drinking water. Much of the drinking water is drawn from unprotected boreholes and wells, surface water sources, and polluted rivers and latrine coverage is just over 15%. It is against this backdrop that WaterGuard and the related behavior-change campaign were launched, with the goal of achieving a reduction in diarrhea-related morbidity and mortality in children under age five in Southern Sudan.<\/p>\n

WaterGuard, a chlorine tablet for in-home use that kills germs causing diarrhea and cholera, was introduced to Southern Sudan by PSI\/Sudan in November 2006 as an emergency intervention. In April 2007, the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) Ministry of Health (MoH) began funding procurement and subsidized social marketing in order to ensure availability to the populace. One year later, PSI\/Sudan received additional support from the Louis Berger Group through USAID to scale up outreach and education activities in Juba, with a focus on reaching mothers of children under the age of five, primary school students, health care workers and their patients.<\/p>\n

Community member Charity Boaza, from Muniki Payam, says that before she started using WaterGuard her family was always suffering from illnesses caused by water. Since learning about WaterGuard from a visit to a health facility in Juba, she has used it consistently and has seen a noticeable improvement in the health of her family. \u201cWe thank GoSS for sending PSI to us to teach people how to use WaterGuard. We also thank the other NGOs that support us through the introduction of WaterGuard,\u201d she states.<\/p>\n

Addressing the 200-plus crowd were the U.S. Consul General Christopher Datta; UNICEF Chief of Operations, Peter Crowley; PSI\/Sudan Country Representative Marcie Cook; Director General Preventative Medicine, MoH GoSS, Dr. John Rumunu; and the Central Equatoria State Minister of Health, Dr. Pius Subek.<\/p>\n

Since April 2007, PSI\/Sudan has distributed nearly six million tablets of WaterGuard \u2014 providing 120 million litres of safe water \u2014 and reached more than 15,000 community members with behavior change techniques. WaterGuard is available in the cities of Juba, Yei and Wau.<\/p>","protected":false},"template":"","related_countries":[],"related_projects":[],"news_category":[],"health-area":[],"capabilities-and-cross-cutting":[],"class_list":["post-3721","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/3721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"related_countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_countries?post=3721"},{"taxonomy":"related_projects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_projects?post=3721"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=3721"},{"taxonomy":"health-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/health-area?post=3721"},{"taxonomy":"capabilities-and-cross-cutting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/capabilities-and-cross-cutting?post=3721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}