2008 International symposium on Household Water Management held at Accra,Ghana

Accra, Ghana will be hosting the 2008 International Symposium on Household Water Management and the Fourth Annual Meeting of the International Network to Promote Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage on 11-14 March 2008. Its goal will be to address barriers to introducing, upscaling and achieving sustainable HWTS interventions at a country level, especially in developing countries and participants are likely to bring a wide range of experience to the gathering. For more details on submitting papers and poster presentations, check out www.who.int/entity/household_water/network/announcement.pdf. Note that the dates have been postponed, and the deadline for submission is now January 7th 2008. Contact address is hhwater@who.int Water quality treatment has in the past most commonly focused on the point of distribution, but there is increasing evidence that point of use treatment efforts may have greater success in preventing disease outbreaks, especially where distribution systems are in a state of disrepair or are stretched beyond the limit. Recent studies suggest that POU treatment through devices like flocculation-disinfection satchets, ceramic filters and solar disinfection, together with awareness drives on safe storage practices could reduce diarrhoeal diseases by as much as 40%, or more than twice as effectively as treatment at source.