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Review
. 2021 Jan:192:110309.
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110309. Epub 2020 Oct 10.

Assessment of socioeconomic inequality based on virus-contaminated water usage in developing countries: A review

Bashir Adelodun  1 , Fidelis Odedishemi Ajibade  2 , Joshua O Ighalo  3 , Golden Odey  4 , Rahmat Gbemisola Ibrahim  5 , Kola Yusuff Kareem  6 , Hashim Olalekan Bakare  7 , AbdulGafar Olatunji Tiamiyu  7 , Temitope F Ajibade  8 , Taofeeq Sholagberu Abdulkadir  9 , Kamoru Akanni Adeniran  6 , Kyung Sook Choi  10
Affiliations
Review

Assessment of socioeconomic inequality based on virus-contaminated water usage in developing countries: A review

Bashir Adelodun et al. Environ Res. 2021 Jan.

Abstract

Water is an essential resource required for various human activities such as drinking, cooking, and other recreational activities. While developed nations have made significant improvement in providing adequate quality water and sanitation devoid of virus contaminations to a significant percentage of the residences, many of the developing countries are still lacking in these regards, leading to many death cases among the vulnerable due to ingestion of virus-contaminated water and other waterborne pathogens. However, the recent global pandemic of COVID-19 seems to have changed the paradigm by reawakening the importance of water quality and sanitation, and focusing more attention on the pervasive effect of the use of virus-contaminated water as it can be a potential driver for the spread of the virus and other waterborne diseases, especially in developing nations that are characterized by low socioeconomic development. Therefore, this review assessed the socioeconomic inequalities related to the usage of virus-contaminated water and other waterborne pathogens in developing countries. The socioeconomic factors attributed to the various waterborne diseases due to the use of virus-contaminated water in many developing countries are poverty, the standard of living, access to health care facilities, age, gender, and level of education. Some mitigation strategies to address the viral contamination of water sources are therefore proposed, while future scope and recommendations on tackling the essential issues related to socioeconomic inequality in developing nations are highlighted.

Keywords: Developing countries; Drinking water; Inequality; Socioeconomic; Virus contamination.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image 1
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Topographic map of African River network.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Socioeconomic factors influencing the occurrence of viral waterborne diseases.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Schematic of a ceramic water filter (Farrow et al., 2014).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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