People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV)

Innovations in Water and Sanitation – Helping People Living with HIV to Access Better Water and Sanitation Facilities

  • Source:
  • Catholic Relief Services

  • Summary:
  • A healthy environment is crucial for maintaining the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS, and for the success of home-based care. The WHO estimates that 85 to 90 percent of diarrheal illnesses in developing countries can be attributed to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene practices, such as handwashing with soap, treatment and safe storage of water, and safe feces disposal. Proper care requires not only safe drinking water, but also larger quantities of water for hygiene and sanitation purposes, and because of physical limitations caused by HIV/ AIDS, the design of water and sanitation facilities greatly influences effective access to these services. Unfortunately, water and sanitation services are extremely limited in many of the countries most affected by the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.

  • Keywords:
  • Accessing Water Diarrheal Diseases Evidence Base Handwashing (Hand Washing) Home-Based Care Household Water Treatment & Storage Innovation People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal
  • AIDSTAR AIDS Support and Technical Assistance Resources – Improving the Lives of PLHIV Training Resources

    • Source:
    • AIDSTAR-One

    • Summary:
    • Several USAID projects have developed training materials and participant manuals for integrating WASH into home-based and facility care. These provide more detailed "how tos": both how to improve sanitation and hand washing through behavior change, and how to build capacity of professional and lay cadres. USAID’s AIDSTAR I program has developed a comprehensive training guide and materials for health workers available from the AIDSTAR website.

  • Keywords:
  • Food Hygiene Home-Based Care Household Water Treatment & Storage Innovation Maternal and Child Health Nutrition OVCs (Orphans/Vulnerable Children) People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) PEPFAR PMTCT (Preventing Mother to Child Trans.) Sanitation/Feces Disposal Small Doable Actions Websites
  • FANTA Site – Focus Area: HIV

    • Source:
    • FANTA (Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance)

    • Summary:
    • HIV compromises the nutritional status of infected individuals and malnutrition worsens the effects of the disease. Nutrition interventions can help break this cycle by helping PLHIV manage symptoms, reduce susceptibility to opportunistic infections, improve nutritional status, promote response to medical treatment, and improve overall quality of life. Specifically,with support from USAID and PEPFAR, FANTA-2: a) provides technical assistance to strengthen nutrition assessment, counseling, and support for PLHIV; b) improves food assistance security programming in the context of HIV; c) produces and disseminates program guidance on nutritional care and support interventions; d) helps countries in east and southern Africa adapt HIV-nutrition guidance to their specific contexts through national guidelines, training curricula and programs, counseling materials, monitoring and evaluation support, and capacity-building activities; e) provides in-country support to integrate and scale up nutrition interventions in HIV services in Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia; f) strengthens the evidence base about the impacts of food supplementation on malnourished PLHIV; g) supports randomized controlled evaluations in Malawi and Kenya; and h) supports improved program design and monitoring and evaluation of food-assisted programs addressing HIV and its impacts through technical assistance to USAID.

  • Keywords:
  • Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Nutrition People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) PEPFAR Policy Programming Guidance Training Resources Websites
  • Community Health Workers in WASH-HIV Integration

    • Source:
    • Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation & C-Change/FHI 360. 2011.

    • Summary:
    • Community health workers (CHWs) — the core of the community strategy — are expected to mobilize and energize communities to take charge of their own health. The approach used in this Training Guide harnesses capacity for improving WASH practices by having CHWs negotiate small doable actions that individuals and families can take to improve their behavior incrementally while working toward an ideal practice. This approach is more likely to lead to sustained behavior change by ensuring that families identify feasible but effective actions that they can practice correctly and consistently, thereby improving the likelihood that the practice will be maintained over time. It also supports incremental change; once smaller successes are realized, families feel ready to take on bigger challenges.

  • Keywords:
  • Community-Based Care Diarrheal Diseases Handwashing (Hand Washing) Household Water Treatment & Storage People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal Small Doable Actions Training Resources
  • Participatory Health and Hygiene Education (HIV and AIDS Focused) Workshop Manual

    • Source:
    • Institute of Water and Sanitation Development. 2011. Zimbabwe

    • Summary:
    • The objective of the ZIMWASH project is to strengthen the capacity of civil society and local government in Zimbabwe to provide sustainable integrated water, sanitation and hygiene services that address the needs of the rural poor, especially those of people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. It was against this background that a training of trainers workshop on Participatory Health and Hygiene Education (focusing on HIV and AIDS) was conducted in Hwange District. This manual provides the schedule and training materials for the five-day workshop.

  • Keywords:
  • Handwashing (Hand Washing) Household Water Treatment & Storage People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal Training Resources
  • Summary of WaterAid’s Work on HIV/AIDS: Equity and Inclusion – Key Lessons

    • Source:
    • WaterAid. 2011.

    • Summary:
    • Despite people living with HIV and AIDS having an increased need of access to WASH, limited progress has been made in terms of research, integrated programming and joint-advocacy regarding the crossover between WASH and HIV/AIDS. There is a clear need to investigate this link further. This briefing note summarises WaterAid’s work in this area, the key lessons learned and recommendations for the future.

  • Keywords:
  • Accessing Water Best Practices and Lessons Learned Evidence Base Handwashing (Hand Washing) People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal
  • Use of Nutritional and Water Hygiene Packages for Diarrhoeal Prevention Among HIV-Exposed Infants in Lilongwe, Malawi: An Evaluation of a Pilot Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission Post-Natal Care Service

    • Source:
    • Xue J et al. 2010. Trop Med Int Health October 2010. University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

    • Summary:
    • In Malawi, free fortified porridge and water hygiene packages were offered to mothers to encourage frequent post-natal visits and to reduce diarrheal rates in infants on replacement feeding. Participant retention and infant health outcome were assessed. The majority of participants adhered to their scheduled visits and retention was favorable, possibly because of the introduction of hygiene and nutrition incentives. The infant diarrheal rate was low, suggesting benefits of regular medical care with hygiene package usage and reliable replacement feeding options.

  • Keywords:
  • Breast Feeding/Infant Feeding Diarrheal Diseases Food Hygiene Formative Research Household Water Treatment & Storage Journal Articles Nutrition People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) PMTCT (Preventing Mother to Child Trans.)
  • Access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for People Living with HIV and AIDS: A Cross-Sectional Study in Nepal

    • Source:
    • WaterAid in Nepal. 2010.

    • Summary:
    • The main objective of the study was to increase the understanding of PLHAs’ access to WASH and its impact on their daily lives in order to inform the health, HIV/AIDS and WASH sectors of the various issues involved. Specifically, the study aimed to: - Assess the prevailing knowledge, opinions and practices of WASH amongst PLHA. - Learn about the experiences of PLHA with regards to their access to WASH and factors associated with it. - Gather views of PLHA on WASH and its link to their social lives and health. - Highlight the need for cross-sector debate and efforts to address the WASH issues for PLHA within the health, HIV/AIDS and WASH sectors.

  • Keywords:
  • Accessing Water Evidence Base Handwashing (Hand Washing) People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal Stigma
  • Apparent Impact of Enteric Pathogens in Drinking Water and Implications for the Relentless Saga of HIV/ AIDS in South Africa

    • Source:
    • Momba MNB, Madoroba E, Obi CL. 2010. Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa.

    • Summary:
    • Worldwide there is a strong association between diarrhoeal diseases and contaminated water. South Africa is no exception. The majority of households in developing countries, the epicentre of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, obtain their water from polluted and contaminated sources. Diarrhoeic pathogens have been more frequently isolated from stool samples of HIV/AIDS patients, and from their respective household drinking water, than from HIV-negative control groups. For these reasons, there are links between the quality of water, diarrhoea and HIV/AIDS, despite the fact that these aspects, at first glance, do not seem connected.

  • Keywords:
  • Diarrheal Diseases Evidence Base Household Water Treatment & Storage People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV)
  • Webinar on “Meeting the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Needs of People Living with HIV/AIDS and their Families,” April 8, 2010

    • Source:
    • Bery, R & Seumo, E. 2010. USAID & HIP.

    • Summary:
    • Recording of HIP's webinar on "Meeting the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Needs of People Living with HIV/AIDS and their Families," held April 8, 2010. Presented by Renuka Bery, senior project manager and Eleonore Suemo, senior program officer. Julia Rosenbaum, deputy director of HIP and Elizabeth Younger, senior behavior change advisor, joined during the question and answer session.

  • Keywords:
  • Evidence Base Handwashing (Hand Washing) Household Water Treatment & Storage People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) Sanitation/Feces Disposal