Assessment of Water Sanitation, Hygiene and Treatment at House Hold Level in Belela Town, Sidama Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Ethiopia has made remarkable progress towards water supply, sanitation and hygiene access in the past decade, but still significant challenges remains unaddressed which varies from place to place especially in Belela town which was not well studied. Therefore, the present study was designed to assess the status of water supply, sanitation and hygiene facilities in Belela town, southern Ethiopia. A community based cross sectional study was conducted. The study subjects were randomly selected 342 households by systematic random sampling. Data were collected through interview and observation checklist. Based on the key indicators addressed in this study, access to water, sanitation and hygiene is lower than that of required standard. The main water sources of the respondents of the study area of households were unprotected spring 120 (35.09%) followed by protected spring 89 (26.02%). The per capita water consumption for private pipe were 13 L and for of public were 6.67 liters’ in addition to this the average water consumption per house hold per day for private pipe were 80 liters and for public were 40 liters per day. Training on hygiene and sanitation practice have been given to 99.12% of the families.The odd ratio indicates, there is a statistically significant association between safeness of water and diarrhea.As a result, from household respondents 58.6% of the diarrhea cases are under five children and the remaining 41.4% were adults. Health-workers and local stake holders must give special attention to improve the demand of the town, additional water, sanitation, and hygiene programs are required these conditions.