Solar Drinking Water Disinfection (SODIS) to Reduce Childhood Diarrhoea in Rural Bolivia: A Cluster-Randomized, Controlled Trial

Abstract

Daniel Maeusezahl and colleagues conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural Bolivia of solar drinking water disinfection, and find only moderate compliance with the intervention and no evidence of reduction in diarrhea among children.

Abstract

Background

Solar drinking water disinfection (SODIS) is a low-cost, point-of-use water purification method that has been disseminated globally. Laboratory studies suggest that SODIS is highly efficacious in inactivating waterborne pathogens. Previous field studies provided limited evidence for its effectiveness in reducing diarrhoea.

Methods and Findings

We conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial in 22 rural communities in Bolivia to evaluate the effect of SODIS in reducing diarrhoea among children under the age of 5 y. A local nongovernmental organisation conducted a standardised interactive SODIS-promotion campaign in 11 communities targeting households, communities, and primary schools. Mothers completed a daily child health diary for 1 y. Within the intervention arm 225 households (376 children) were trained to expose water-filled polyethyleneteraphtalate bottles to sunlight. Eleven communities (200 households, 349 children) served as a control. We recorded 166,971 person-days of observation during the trial representing 79.9% and 78.9% of the total possible person-days of child observation in intervention and control arms, respectively. Mean compliance with SODIS was 32.1%. The reported incidence rate of gastrointestinal illness in children in the intervention arm was 3.6 compared to 4.3 episodes/year at risk in the control arm. The relative rate of diarrhoea adjusted for intracluster correlation was 0.81 (95% confidence interval 0.59–1.12). The median length of diarrhoea was 3 d in both groups.

Conclusions

Despite an extensive SODIS promotion campaign we found only moderate compliance with the intervention and no strong evidence for a substantive reduction in diarrhoea among children. These results suggest that there is a need for better evidence of how the well-established laboratory efficacy of this home-based water treatment method translates into field effectiveness under various cultural settings and intervention intensities. Further global promotion of SODIS for general use should be undertaken with care until such evidence is available.

Trial Registration

www.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00731497

Please see later in the article for Editors' Summary

Editors' Summary

Background

Thirsty? Well, turn on the tap and have a drink of refreshing, clean, safe water. Unfortunately, more than one billion people around the world don't have this option. Instead of the endless supply of safe drinking water that people living in affluent, developed countries take for granted, more than a third of people living in developing countries only have contaminated water from rivers, lakes, or wells to drink. Because of limited access to safe drinking water, poor sanitation, and poor personal hygiene, 1.8 million people (mainly children under 5 years old) die every year from diarrheal diseases. This death toll could be greatly reduced by lowering the numbers of disease-causing microbes in household drinking water. One promising simple, low-cost, point-of-use water purification method is solar drinking water disinfection (SODIS). In SODIS, recycled transparent plastic drinks bottles containing contaminated water are exposed to full sunlight for 6 hours. During this exposure, ultraviolet radiation from the sun, together with an increase in temperature, inactivates the disease-causing organisms in the water.

Why Was This Study Done?

SODIS has been promoted as an effective method to purify household water since 1999, and about 2 million people now use the approach ( www.SODIS.ch). However, although SODIS works well under laboratory conditions, very few studies have investigated its ability to reduce the number of cases of diarrhea occurring in a population over a specific time period (the incidence of diarrhea) in the real world. Before any more resources are used to promote SODIS—its effective implementation requires intensive and on-going education—it is important to be sure that SODIS really does reduce the burden of diarrhea in communities in the developing world. In this study, therefore, the researchers undertake a cluster-randomized controlled trial (a study in which groups of people are randomly assigned to receive an intervention or to act as controls) in 22 rural communities in Bolivia to evaluate the ability of SODIS to reduce diarrhea in children under 5 years old.

What Did the Researchers Do and Find?

For their trial, the researchers enrolled 22 rural Bolivian communities that included at least 30 children under 5 years old and that relied on drinking water resources that were contaminated with disease-causing organisms. They randomly assigned 11 communities (225 households, 376 children) to receive the intervention—a standardized, interactive SODIS promotion campaign conducted by Project Concern International (a nongovernmental organization)—and 11 communities (200 households, 349 children) to act as controls. Households in the intervention arm were trained to expose water-filled plastic bottles for at least 6 hours to sunlight using demonstrations, role play, and videos. Mothers in both arms of the trial completed a daily child health diary for a year. Almost 80% of the households self-reported using SODIS at the beginning and end of the study. However, community-based field workers estimated that only 32.1% of households on average used SODIS. Data collected in the child health diaries, which were completed on more than three-quarters of days in both arms of the trial, indicated that the children in the intervention arm had 3.6 episodes of diarrhea per year whereas the children in the control arm had 4.3 episodes of diarrhea per year. The difference in episode numbers was not statistically significant, however. That is, the small difference in the incidence of diarrhea between the arms of the trial may have occurred by chance and may not be related to the intervention.

What Do These Findings Mean?

These findings indicate that, despite an intensive campaign to promote SODIS, less than a third of households in the trial routinely treated their water in the recommended manner. Moreover, these findings fail to provide strong evidence of a marked reduction of the incidence of diarrhea among children following implementation of SODIS although some aspects of the study design may have resulted in the efficacy of SODIS being underestimated. Thus, until additional studies of the effectiveness of SODIS in various real world settings have been completed, it may be unwise to extend the global promotion of SODIS for general use any further.

Additional Information

Please access these Web sites via the online version of this summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000125

• The PLoS Medicine editors wrote an editorial arguing that water should be a human right

• The World Health Organization provides information about household water treatment and safe storage http://www.who.int/household_water and about the importance of water, sanitation, and hygiene for health http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/en/index.html (in several languages)

• The SODIS Reference Center provides detailed information about solar water disinfection (in several languages)

• The SODIS Foundation in Bolivia provides practical information for the roll-out of solar water disinfection in Latin America (in Spanish and English)

• Project Concern International provides information about its campaign to promote SODIS in Bolivia (in Spanish)

• The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) is a global multi-stakeholder partnership organization with a goal of advocating to achieve sustainable water supply and sanitation for all people