Water source imrpovement and water treatment

Like Rochelle, I have been watching but couldn’t get round to finding the original log in details etc to comment. However before the end…. I am Sally Sutton by the way, working at present as a consultant with UNICEF West and Central African Regional Office on Cholera prevention and increased household investment in improved water supply – Self Supply (ranging from household water treatment to source up-grading)
re Rochelle Rainey 1899 and Abednego Chigumbu. The question of length of time of changed practice is important, as is the difference between peri-urban and rural environments. The two environments may exhibit very different mobility of faecal coliform and also possibility of supply chains working. Peri-urban areas tend to have higher faecal coliform counts in sources (and possibly also of contamination between source and POU?) but also better access to supplies. In rural areas source (and hosuehold) contamination appears generally to be low in much of Africa (judging from results in 4 countries only but very different cultural environments)compared with Asia and Latin America (usually tens rather than hundreds or thousands of FC). So we should be careful to quantify the problem and not make assumptions before encouraging people into investments which may have very little benefit, and rural supply chains are also difficult to maintain. It would be good to know how many of the studies on health impact, contamination between source and POU and water quality are from rural environments. Different strategies may be more effective in different environments, rural, urban, African, LatinAmerican, Asian.
A move to HHWT in cholera times is difficult to sustain (though UNICEF are now looking at how to extend this in 8 cholera prone countries of West Africa), especially when government provides chlorine for free during epidemics. The danger of relying on the one intervention only is that it is the most vulnerable who tend to be the last to change, and as someone has already pointed out it is the financing systems which perhaps need more attention than the technology. Enable people to make their own choices. In general quality comes a lot further down their list than having a source nearer to the house, which they can then manage, improve and set rules and act as arbiters of good practice including treatment as they will be regarded as 'progessive'. Step by step approaches include all options, but in the order households feel is appropriate to their needs.
Otherwise.. just to say thanks for very useful discussion (some of which I have forwarded to various West African offices along with encouragement to look at the whole debate).
Best wishes
Sally Sutton