Preliminary observations on accessibility and utilisation of water in selected villages in Dodoma Rural and Bagamoyo Districts, Tanzania

A study was carried out to establish the availability and utilisation of water in eight villages in Dodoma Rural and Bagamoyo districts, Tanzania. A total of 128 respondents were interviewed, involving 64 people in each district. The study revealed that the main sources of water for domestic and animal uses in Dodoma district were wells and dams, while in Bagamoyo district; the main sources were dams and ponds. Nine percent of the respondents reported water to be 'readily available', whereas 50% and 41% reported water to be 'not easily available' and 'problematic', respectively. Distances travelled to the nearest water source were in the range of 0.5-2.0, 0.25-15.00 and 0.5-14.40km for the respondents who reported water as "readily available", "not easily available" and "problematic", respectively and, the corresponding time taken to the nearest water source was 0.17-2.00; 0.10-6.00 and 0.17-5.00 hours for the three categories of respondents respectively. More than two-thirds of the respondents reported that water sources were shared between households and also 71.9% reported sharing of water sources with animals, particularly cattle, sheep and goats. The proportions of respondents that reported occurrence of enteric or diarrhoeic cases amongst household members within the past three months before the study were 35.9% and 37.5% in Dodoma and Bagamoyo districts, respectively. All respondents in Dodoma district had latrines whereas 84% in Bagamoyo district had these facilities. All except one of the respondents who had no latrines in Bagamoyo district were based in Chamakweza, a village dominated by a Maasai pastoral community. Interestingly, a significantly higher proportion of diarrhoeic cases were reported in this village compared to the other three villages in Bagamoyo district (p = 0.029). These findings show that availability of safe water is a serious problem in the study areas and that this may have serious consequences on public health. Studies to establish the association between water quality and magnitude of zoonotic enteric pathogens are underway. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.