Developing a locally viable water filtration method to provide safe drinking & bathing water from Lake Victoria in a Schistosoma mansoni endemic area.

开发当地可行的水过滤方法以提供安全饮用

• 批准号: 2588563
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Glasgow
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2588563
• 关键词: Developing; locally; viable; water; filtration

strategic priority area:Water engineering. Design/optimisation of technologies relating to water resource management, treatment and distribution systems (including waste water and sewerage).Keywords:WASH, filtration, disease, sustainable, schistosomiasisSchistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease infecting over 240 million people, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, causing approximately 200,000 deaths a year and severe illness in millions of children and adults. Transmission is intrinsically linked to poverty, driven by poor water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) conditions. Individuals acquire infections when they contact fresh water containing cercariae, the infective larval stage of the parasite, which burrow directly through the skin upon contact. Water contact occurs through behaviours such as water collection and bathing. Water contamination, and hence disease transmission through water contact, is high in areas with inadequate sanitation with the parasite eggs excreted in human urine and stool. Presently, mass drug administration is the main form of control, but improved WASH facilities are required to interrupt transmission and reduce reinfection. Biofiltration and slow sand filters are simple, cost effective biotechnologies available for drinking water purification. The complex biofilms that form within the biofilters breakdown nutrients and/or eliminate pathogens (such as viral and bacterial pathogens) to make the water safe for drinking. However, the biology is often not fully understood and therefore not fully optimised for efficiency or targeted removal of particular pathogens and/or contaminants. For example, slow sand filters would be expected to also remove parasites such as Schistosoma larval stages from the water. However, these technologies have yet to fully optimised and tested in Schistosoma endemic areas for the treatment of water to reduce schistosomiasis transmission and a range of other water borne contaminants. This PhD will address questions surrounding the design, effectiveness, and uptake of a low-cost water filtration system to extract and treat lake water by passage using low cost, low energy biofilters to make it safe for drinking, bathing and other domestic uses. The project will involve 1) working in the laboratory in the UK to design, test and optimise the filtration methods using cercariae from laboratory life cycles. Field work in Uganda will focus on 2) identifying suitable, locally available materials for future local manufacturing, enhancing sustainability of future interventions, as well as 3) performing parasitological and epidemiological studies with households from endemic areas to assess filtration usage and reinfection levels in families with and without access to treated water.The overarching aim is to develop a biofiltration system, by optimising the biology to remove Schistosoma and other water borne contaminants, that can logistically and affordably manufactured within endemic communities, to efficiently treat infectious lake water to make it safe for drinking, bathing and domestic use. Specific objectives include:1: Optimising the efficacy of slow-sand biofilters for the removing and/or inactivating schistosome cercariae in the laboratory2: Performing qualitative surveys in communities to identify preferences for water filtration design and location2: Identify materials and skills for the future manufacturing of low-cost filters using locally sourced materials and labour.3: Monitor filtration usage and Schistosoma mansoni infection and reinfection levels in families in endemic communities in Uganda with access to the new filtration systems and those with no additional interventions.Skills will be gained in environmental engineering and microbiology, parasitology, field epidemiology and with an understanding in social sciences, health economics and local manufacturing gained through our collaborators at the Ugandan Virus Research Institute.

战略优先领域：水工程。与水资源管理，处理和分配系统有关的技术的设计/优化（包括废水和下水道）。关键字：清洗，过滤，疾病，可持续，可持续性，棘孢子虫病是一种被忽视的热带疾病，具有超过240万人非洲，每年大约造成200,000人死亡，数百万儿童和成人疾病。传播与贫困本质上有关，这是由水，卫生和卫生条件不良的驱动。当个体接触含有cercariae的淡水时，寄生虫的感染性幼体阶段就会收到感染，该水接触后直接通过皮肤钻出。水接触是通过收集和沐浴等行为发生的。在人尿和粪便中排出的寄生虫卵不足以卫生区域，水污染，因此通过水接触传播的疾病很高。目前，大规模药物管理是控制的主要形式，但是需要改进的洗涤设施以中断传播和减少再感染。生物过滤和慢砂过滤器是简单，具有成本效益的生物技术，可供饮用水净化。在生物滤液中形成的复杂生物膜分解营养和/或消除病原体（例如病毒和细菌病原体），以使水安全饮用。但是，生物学通常不完全理解，因此未完全优化效率或靶向去除特定的病原体和/或污染物。例如，慢速滤清器也有望清除寄生虫，例如从水中幼虫阶段。然而，这些技术尚未在血吸虫流行区域中进行全面优化和测试，以治疗水，以减少血吸虫病的传播和一系列其他水传播污染物。该博士将解决围绕设计，有效性和吸收低成本水过滤系统的问题，以通过低成本，低能生物过滤器通过通道来提取和治疗湖水，以使其可用于饮酒，沐浴和其他家用用途。该项目将涉及1）在英国的实验室工作，使用实验室生命周期的cercariae设计，测试和优化过滤方法。乌干达的现场工作将集中于2）确定适合本地生产的本地可用材料，增强未来干预措施的可持续性，以及3）与地方性地区的家庭进行寄生学和流行病学研究，以评估家庭的过滤和重新感染水平在有或不使用经过处理的水的情况下。总体目的是通过优化生物学来开发生物过滤系统，以去除血吸虫和其他水生污染物，这些污染物可以在地方性社区内部且负担得起的生产，以有效地处理感染性的湖水，以使其有效地处理。可以安全喝酒，洗澡和家庭用途。具体目标包括：1：优化慢固定生物过滤器的疗效，用于在实验室中删除和/或灭活螺旋体cercariae 2：在社区中执行定性调查，以识别水过滤设计和位置的偏好2：确定未来制造材料和技能的材料和技能使用本地采购的材料和劳动。3：监测过滤的使用和曼森感染和血吸虫的曼森感染以及乌干达流行社区家庭中的家庭恢复水平，并获得了新的过滤系统，并且没有其他干预措施。环境工程和微生物学，寄生虫学，现场流行病学以及通过我们在乌干达病毒研究所的合作者获得的社会科学，健康经济学和地方制造业的了解。