The effects of water quality and sanitation on immunocompromised: A case study of people living with HIV/AIDS in Kibera slum, Kenya

Background: Closer inspection of the spread of HIV/AIDS and its implications on individuals; communities and societies reveals several significant linkages with water and sanitation. In the context of poverty; malnutrition; high prevalence of co-infections with other opportunistic diseases; and overburdened health systems; individuals may be more susceptible to acquiring HIV and less able to cope with HIV-related illnesses; both physically and economically.Objectives: To determine the effect of sanitation and water quality on people living with HIV/AIDS in Kibera slum.Design: A cross sectional study.Settings: The study was carried out in Kibera informal settlement in Nairobi; Kenya.Subject: Randomly recruited 369 adults living with HIV/AIDS in Kibera slum.Results: Logistic regression analysis employed to predict the probability that a respondent living with HIV/AIDS in Kibera slum would be infected with diseases related to taking contaminated water and living in poor environmental sanitary conditions using the predictor variables and showed a significant partial effect; x2 (5; N = 369) = 73.912; p 0.001.Conclusions: Safe drinking water was inaccessible to a majority of participants indicating a high risk of opportunistic diseases and high economic burden

Nutritional Status and Associated Factors among School going Children Aged 4-10 Years in Kisii Central Sub-County

Background: Malnutrition is a major challenge in developing world with children less than ten years bearing most of these conditions. In Kenya malnutrition is the greatest contributor to child mortality at 53%. Malnutrition among school age children is due to inadequacies in one or more of the three main pre-conditions for food nutrition; care and health. Objective: Nutritional status and associated factors among school going children aged 4-10 years in Kisii Central Sub-county.Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study.Settings: Five public primary schools representative of fifty four public primary schools in Kisii.Subjects: Three hundred and fifteen children (155 males and 160 females) aged 4-10 years old.Results: This study showed that 6.5%; 1.9%; 3.9% were HAZ; WHZ; and WAZ respectively. The prevalence of WHZ among school boys was 8.2% compared to school girls 5.2%. Among the school boys 7.0% were prevalent to HAZ compared to school girls 0.9%. The prevalence of WHZ among children aged 6-10 was 3.9%compared to prevalence of children aged 4-5 years which was 1.1%. The prevalence of WAZ among children aged 6-10 years was 1.9% versus 4.0% for children aged 4-5 years. Study showed that different socio-economic/cultural factors were significantly associated to nutritional status of children namely;mothers' knowledge about a child's nutrition 73.35% and father's knowledge 62.5%; size of household (?2= 45.8; p= 0.005); amount of income per household (?2= 45.82; p= 0.005); and marital status of the guardians (?2= 36.89; p=0.045). Dietary intake per day was 28.3% and minimum of three meals were taken. Conclusion: The prevalence of malnutrition was significantly associated with some socio-economics factors such as; mothers 'knowledge about a child's nutrition; amount of income per household and size of the household of which eradication of poverty may promote nutritional status on school children in Kisii County