Assessment of Water handling and Sanitation practices among Rural communities of Farta Woreda, Northwest Ethiopia

Worldwide, 663 million people do not have access to improved drinking water supplies and 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation including one billion who practice open defecation. Eighty-eight percent of deaths from diarrheal diseases are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, and insufficient hygiene practices. Objective: To assess water handling and sanitation practice among rural communities of Farta woreda,North west Ethiopia. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study design was conducted in Farta Woreda from March 5 to 20, 2015. A total of 834 households were proportionally allocated to 10 kebeles of the Woreda and selected by systematic random sampling Technique.Data was collected using a pretested structured questionnaire. Descriptive analysis was performed to obtain the frequency distribution of the variables. Results: The majority of respondents water source were unprotected spring 313 (37.5%) followed by protected spring 206(24.7%). In addition to this, most households 382 (92.5%) had covered their stored water. Most of the respondents practiced pouring method to withdraw water from the stored container. Majority 738 (88.5%) of households had access to water within a time of 30 minutes or less. House hold water treatment was not common in the study area, only 23 (2.8%) households practiced. About four hundred seventy eight (57.3%) households had latrine facility, of which 263 (55%) was open pit latrine. In addition of those households having latrine only 102(21.3%) of households had hand washing facility. Conclusions: This study revealed that most of the respondents had poor water handling and sanitation practice. Thus, this study underscores that there should be great attention.