etienne kayonga  i do not ...

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etienne kayonga 

i do not understand why you would chlorinate tbe well directly, this is terribly inefficient and almost impossible to get right, as your experience indicates. the mass balance in the well is not static, as chlorinated water is removed it is replaced by unchlorinatef ground water, diluting the chlorine solution and rendering it ineffective as a disinfectant. There is no need to clorinate a protected well, and chlorine solution should be used to wash the well lining, rather than chlorinate the water in the well. 

it would be far more effective to train health workers or well attendants to chlorinate the water one it is in collection & storage vessels. more effective still would be to train health workers to train households to filter and chlorinate their own water. 

in terms of controlling cholera trying to maintain a disinfection dose in a well is ineffective and wasteful, you are quite literally throwing your expensive chlorine down a hole in the ground. if you are committed to chlolera prevention a more effective approach would be:

1. Support chlorination at household level.

2. Increase storage capacity at house hold level (storage for 18-24 hours would be a significantly more reliable treatment than disinfecting the well water, see WHO water Quality Guidelines)

3. Place emphasis on the safe food chain (cholera transmission requires a highi infectious dose, and food is a more likely route than water as if food is contaminated the bacteria can multiply more readily on the food than in water)

4. Emphasis on handwashing (the majority of people infected are asymptomatic but contagious)

Please stop throwing your chlorine down the well, it is wasteful and ineffective.

Please note that I have over 20 years of experience in WASH, and was a global technical adviser for Oxfam for several years. I include this to let you know that I am not making the preceding points up. As far as I am aware there is no evidence that chlorinating wells is an effective approach to cholera prevention, but there is significant evidence that the approaches outlined above are.

Best regards

 

John Cody