Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 May 28;12(1):273.
doi: 10.1186/s13071-019-3532-6.

The role of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in reducing soil-transmitted helminths: interpreting the evidence and identifying next steps

Susana Vaz Nery  1 , Amy J Pickering  2 , Ebba Abate  3 , Abraham Asmare  4 , Laura Barrett  5 , Jade Benjamin-Chung  6 , Donald A P Bundy  7 , Thomas Clasen  7   8 , Archie C A Clements  9 , John M Colford Jr  6 , Ayse Ercumen  6   10 , Siobhan Crowley  5 , Oliver Cumming  7 , Matthew C Freeman  8 , Rashidul Haque  11 , Birhan Mengistu  12 , William E Oswald  7 , Rachel L Pullan  7 , Rita G Oliveira  5 , Katey Einterz Owen  13 , Judd L Walson  14 , Ashrafedin Youya  15 , Simon J Brooker  13   14
Affiliations
Review

The role of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in reducing soil-transmitted helminths: interpreting the evidence and identifying next steps

Susana Vaz Nery et al. Parasit Vectors. .

Abstract

The transmission soil transmitted helminths (STH) occurs via ingestion of or contact with infective stages present in soil contaminated with human faeces. It follows therefore that efforts to reduce faecal contamination of the environment should help to reduce risk of parasite exposure and improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are seen as essential for the long-term, sustainable control of STH. However, the link between WASH and STH is not always supported by the available evidence from randomised controlled trials, which report mixed effects of WASH intervention on infection risk. This review critically summarises the available trial evidence and offers an interpretation of the observed heterogeneity in findings. The review also discusses the implications of findings for control programmes and highlights three main issues which merit further consideration: intervention design, exposure assessment, and intervention fidelity assessment.

Keywords: Hygiene; Sanitation; Soil-transmitted helminths; WASH; Water.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

References

    1. Pullan RL, Smith JL, Jasrasaria R, Brooker SJ. Global numbers of infection and disease burden of soil transmitted helminth infections in 2010. Parasites Vectors. 2014;7:37. doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-7-37. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bethony J, Brooker S, Albonico M, Geiger SM, Loukas A, Diemert D, et al. Soil-transmitted helminth infections: ascariasis, trichuriasis, and hookworm. Lancet. 2006;367:1521–1532. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68653-4. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hotez PJ, Fenwick A, Ray SE, Hay SI, Molyneux DH. “Rapid impact” 10 years after: the first “decade” (2006–2016) of integrated neglected tropical disease control. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2018;12:e0006137. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0006137. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO . Integrating neglected tropical diseases into global health and development: fourth WHO report on neglected tropical diseases. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017.
    1. UNICEF W. Progress on drinking water and sanitation: 2017 update and SDG Baseline. New York and Geneva UNICEF and WHO; 2017. https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/launch-version-report.... Accessed 15 June 2018.

LinkOut - more resources