Home Hygiene & Health
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A city-wide sanitation intervention was started in Salvador, Brazil, in 1997 to improve sewerage coverage from 26% of households to 80%. The aim was to investigate the epidemiological effect of this city-wide sanitation programme on diarrhoea morbidity in children less than 3 years of age. Diarrhoea prevalence fell by 21% (95% CI 18-25%) - from 9.2 (9.0-9.5) days per child-year before the intervention to 7.3 (7.0-7.5) days per child-year afterwards. After adjustment for baseline sewerage coverage and potential confounding variables, overall prevalence reduction was estimated as 22% (19-26%). Lancet 2007;370:1622-8.