Effectiveness of Point-of-use Water Treatment Technologies to Prevent Stunting Among Children in South Africa

Summary

This project is a community-based randomized controlled trial designed to test the effectiveness of two point-of-use water treatment technologies to improve clean drinking water access, reduce enteropathogen burden, and improve child growth among children in Limpopo, South Africa.

Conditions

• Diarrhoea;Infectious;Presumed
• Diarrhea, Infantile
• Diarrhea Tropical
• Environmental Exposure
• Enteropathy
• Malnutrition, Child

Interventions

DEVICE

Silver-impregnated ceramic tablet

A silver-impregnated ceramic disk used for drinking water treatment that was developed by engineers at the University of Virginia. When the ceramic disk is placed in a household water storage container, silver diffuses through the porous ceramic into the water at a release rate that is effective for continual disinfection of waterborne pathogens while remaining below the silver drinking water standard. The disk is effective for daily treatment of 10 to 15 liters for at least six months. This intervention was removed from the study in July 2017 (approximately at 1 year of follow-up).

DEVICE

Silver-impregnated ceramic water filter

Silver-impregnated ceramic water filter are well-developed, tested, and widely-used devices. In addition to mechanically removing pathogens, the filter is treated with silver to reduce live pathogens that pass through the filter and to provide residual disinfectant to reduce risk of recontamination after treatment. This intervention was replaced with ceramic filters without silver in Dec 2017 (approximately at 1.5 years of follow-up).

DEVICE

Safe-storage water container

The safe-storage water containers used in this study are plastic buckets with a spigot, purchased locally.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Venda

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of Virginia

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Pascal O Bessong, PhD · University of Venda, Limpopo, South Africa

• Rebecca Dillingham, MD, MPH · University of Virginia

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-06-30

Primary Completion

2018-12-31

Completion

2020-12-31

Countries

• South Africa

Study Locations