Abstract:

Access to safe drinkable water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the world, but approximately one billion people in Africa still lack access to safe water and over 2.5 billion lack access to adequate sanitation. In large parts of the world, humans have inadequate access to potable water and use sources contaminated with disease vectors, pathogens or unacceptable levels of toxins or suspended solids. Drinking or using such water in food preparation leads to widespread acute or chronic illnesses and it is a major cause of death and misery in many countries. As such prevention of water borne diseases is a major health goal in developing countries (Fawell J & Chipman K, 2010).

The health burden of poor water quality is enormous with an estimated 37.7million individuals affected by water-borne diseases; annually 1.5 million children are estimated to die from diarrheal-related diseases each year (WHO, 2012).

The developing countries in the world still face the problem of water scarcity with Africa having the largest number of countries encountering these problems. Due to water scarcity, many families tend to store water in their home for long term use. Most families have inadequate knowledge or are ignorant on the duration of the storage and the type of container or vessel used in the collection and storage of drinkable water.

Inhabitants in Santa town in North West region of Cameroon experience inherent episodes of water shortages all round the year prompting household to fetch, store and consume water from doubtful sources.

A study was carried out to assess the knowledge and practices of the inhabitants of Santa town in the collection and preservation of potable water in order to avert the occurrence of water-borne diseases.

Primary data was collected with the use of a structured questionnaire with open and close-ended questions, administered by the researcher and co-researchers to the study population in the randomly selected quarters using cluster sampling. A sample size of 110 households was recruited for the study.

Results show that 68 (58.18%) of respondents defined drinkable water as water safe enough to be consumed with low risk of harm, 24 (21.8%) defined it as water which originates from pipe borne water while 16 (14.5%) said that it is water from any natural source.

On the criteria used in the identification of unsafe water, 68 (58.18%) said they identified water which is not safe for drinking from its color, taste and odor; on the issue of water protection and preservation from contaminants, 58(52.7%) of the responses were that they lacked containers for their drinking water, 32(29.5%) said they lacked chemicals and filters to treat their water, while 14(12.9%) did not have knowledge in the protection and preservation of potable water while 06 (5.5%) said that the problem they encountered was the presence of children playing around drinkable water sources and water storage containers.

From the data collected, and analysis made it be can be concluded that there exist inadequate knowledge on the protection and preservation of potable water. Their understanding of the notions of hygiene and sanitation, the knowledge and practices on the collection and preservation of potable water are not based on the level of education but on how much public health information they got about drinking water collection, treatment and preservation. So, an up-to-date, knowledge and practices on the collection, treatment and preservation of potable water is necessary for the wellbeing of the Santa community. The Council’s hygiene and sanitation service should take it as duty function to organize regular public health education lectures in social institutions in order to enlighten the community.

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