WHO guidance on household water treatment published

Maggie Brown, MS, ELS, Senior Production Editor at PLoS continues her series of posts on water and sanitation.

WHO has just announced the  publication of their latest guidance, Evaluating Household Water Treatment Options: Health-Based Targets and Microbiological Performance Specifications . Also known as point-of-use treatment, household water treatment (HWT) may be especially important in improving incidence of waterborne diseases where community water sources are untreated or become contaminated during delivery. The report “provides a basis by which to evaluate the microbiological performance of HWT options” so that policymakers and implementers are better able address local conditions and, ultimately, protect the health of users from waterborne pathogens. WHO emphasizes that this report “is especially intended for resource-scarce settings where water quality laboratories may have limited capacity and incremental improvements of HWT performance could have a substantial, positive impact on public health.”