Introduction: The supply of potable water in low resource countries has been a public health concern, with frequent water interruptions, leaving the population vulnerable to access to potable water in households, which renders the population at risk of waterborne diseases like cholera. Our objectives were to assess the household practices of drinking water collection, transportation and storage in the Fako Division of the Southwest Region of Cameroon.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study with a mixed-method approach. Focus Group Discussions were done to get an inside of the observed practices and a quasi-experimental study with education as an intervention. A total of 394 households were randomly selected and issued a pretested questionnaire. A multistage random sampling technique was used to recruit the participants in the households in the four health districts of Fako. For the quasi-experiment, 50 water samples from 50 homes were tested before and after the intervention to measure the mean microbial score in stored household drinking water. A one-sample t-test was used to compare the mean microbial colony count at baseline and 3 months post-intervention. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 23. Crude and adjusted odds ratios and confidence intervals were reported at a significance level of 0.05. Results: Assessing the participants' practice in drinking water collection and transportation, 273 (69.3%) of the participants reported public taps as their primary source of drinking water. The main alternative source of drinking water was spring 233 (59.1%). More than half (56.3%) of the respondents reported that they take more than 30 minutes to fetch water, done mostly by children (62.2%), and the majority (89.1%) do this by trekking. Over half, 268 (68%) of the participants used buckets with lids, and 119 (30.2%), use jerry cans to fetch water. A total of 184 (46.7%) reported a bucket with a lid as the water storage container meanwhile 34 (8.6%) and 176 (44.7%) stored water in a bucket with no lid and jerry cans respectively. Almost a half 180 (46.9%) store their drinking water for more than 2 days. The mean bacterial colony count (29.72 ± 40.07) after the intervention was significantly lower than the mean bacterial colony at baseline (71.4 ± 68.38, t (50) = 6.846, P < 0.001).Conclusion: The primary source of drinking water in Fako is public tap, alternative source being a spring. More than half of the participants trek to fetch water and almost half of the participants store drinking water for more than 2 days. Intervention with health education significantly lowered the mean bacterial colony count in household drinking water.
Drinking water, collection, transportation, storage, Fako, Water Safety Plan (WSP) model, Cameroon
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