WASH in health-care facilities helps reduce the risk of infection and improves prevention and control — crucial during outbreaks like cholera, Ebola, COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Without water, sanitation and hygiene services, mothers and newborns may not receive the quality of care they need to survive and thrive.

Safe WASH is not only a prerequisite to health, but contributes to livelihoods, school attendance and dignity and helps to create resilient communities living in healthy environments.Drinking unsafe water impairs health through illnesses such as diarrhoea, and untreated excreta contaminates groundwaters and surface waters used for drinking-water, irrigation, bathing and household purposes.

WASH is the combined term for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognized water and sanitation as human rights that are “essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”. Due to the codependent nature of these three components, these three core concerns are gathered together.

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) saves lives in both routine and emergency situations.1,2 The main objective of WASH programs in disasters is to reduce faeco-oral transmission of disease and exposure to disease-bearing vectors.

Without water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), people’s wellbeing, dignity and opportunities are severely compromised, particularly women and girls’. Access to water and sanitation are human rights. Hygiene knowledge and facilities are life-saving, highly cost-effective health interventions.