Exploring the correlation between COVID-19 fatalities and poor WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) services
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Abstract
Access to safe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services have been recognized as a highly precautionary measure essential to protecting human health during this COVID-19 outbreak. However, it is currently unknown whether poor or non-availability of these services are also closely related to COVID-19 fatalities. We analysed the latest data on COVID-19 fatality rates in Sub Saharan Africa with indicators of safe water and sanitation governance to test this hypothesis. We found a strong correlation between a higher case fatality rate and poorer access to safe drinking water as well as safe sanitation. The Pearson correlation is stronger for access to safe sanitation (−0.30) compared to access to safe drinking water (−0.20). The Chad, Niger and Sierra Leone were amongst the countries with the highest fatality rates (>6.0) and also had particularly poor access to safe drinking water (<34%) and safe sanitation (<22%). The hypothesis of an association between COVID-19 fatalities and poor access to water and sanitation was confirmed by this study. However, our analysis does not establish causality. Given the increase spread of COVID-19 and related deaths, this analysis serves as an important reminder that safe water and sanitation services are key for public health interventions and highlights the need to prioritise this sector in all economies.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.08.20125864: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.08.20125864: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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