POUZN - AED

PSP Point-of-use Water Disinfection and Zinc Treatment (POUZN) - AED

The Point-Of-Use Water Disinfection and Zinc Treatment (POUZN) project is a USAID Private Sector Program (PSP) initiative co-managed by the Academy for Educational Development (AED). POUZN’s mission is to implement a diarrhea reduction project using point-of-use (POU) water disinfection and zinc treatment, thereby contributing to the reduction of mortality and morbidity from diarrhea, a key USAID strategy. The project will ensure long-term sustainability of zinc and POU by expanding commercial production and sales of these products within the targeted countries. With nearly US $9 million over 5 years in funding, POUZN is designed to engage the private sector in the marketing, sale and local acceptance of POU and zinc product usage.

Background

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that diarrheal diseases still cause nearly 2 million deaths in children less than 5 years of age (out of 10 million total) throughout the developing world each year and contribute substantially to malnutrition in surviving children. Reflecting the importance of addressing this issue, one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is to decrease mortality from diarrhea by two-thirds by the year 2015 and by half by the year 2010.

POU Water Treatment

POU water treatment and safe storage is a public health, hygiene, and water supply intervention designed to prevent diarrhea where waterborne pathogens are a key route of transmission. The target populations are young children under five years of age and their caregivers, particularly in households that store water gathered from remote collection points, have intermittent water service, or suffer poor water quality. Typical reductions in diarrhea prevalence range from one-third to one-half.

POU treatment methods mainly focus on disinfection using either physical or chemical methods, including chlorination, flocculation, and filtration, exposure to sunlight or ultraviolet light, and boiling. POUZN will focus on promoting multiple methods of POU to provide consumers with options for water treatment.

ZINC

The most recently proven approach to preventing childhood mortality and morbidity from diarrhea is treatment with zinc. The WHO has stated that zinc deficiency in children is widespread and this deficiency has been estimated to increase the risk of mortality from diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria by 13% to 21%. Numerous studies have also demonstrate that in conjunction with ORS/ORT adjunct zinc therapy given for 10 to 14 days during and after diarrhea reduces the duration and severity of diarrhea episodes and can have a preventative effective against diarrhea re-occurrence in the subsequent two month period after treatment. Evidence also exists to show that zinc is a cost effective treatment that reduces unnecessary drug use for the treatment of diarrhea.

The POUZN Private Sector Approach

POUZN’s approach is to engage both the commercial and private sectors and leverage their strengths and resources to address the critical public health issue of diarrhea disease. AED has deep experience in leveraging the commercial sector to support public health initiatives in developing countries including hands-on experience in providing technical assistance to local distributors and manufacturers in new product development, generation demand, and marketing and distribution to low income and at risk audiences. POUZN’s approach is not to create new distribution channels or run parallel marketing campaigns to the commercial sector, as those types of channels will exist only as long as there is donor funding. Instead our philosophy, based on our results-oriented experience, is to provide incentives and demonstrate to local manufacturers and distributors both the marketability of these products and the social and economic return.

POUZN’s approach will:
1) Create a competitive, vibrant market in which local commercial companies – manufacturers, distributors, and retailers – conduct sustainable marketing of products specifically targeting low-income and rural communities. The approach will leverage the private sector to do what it does best – production, distribution, promotion, detailing.
2) Increase the participation of civil society and NGOs to penetrate deeper into remote and hard-to-reach areas than traditional commercial distributors, and thus bring community-based communication and distribution as well as hands-on knowledge to communities to help penetrate or remove behavior and information barriers and challenges.
3) Create an enabling environment, decreasing product registration time and effort, addressing taxes, tariffs and regulatory issues, obtaining clear national guidelines and gaining professional association endorsement.

POUZN is currently in the planning and implementation phase of the project. In the near future programs will be running in three to-be-determined locations.

For further information please contact:

Mr. Camille Saadé
Director, POUZN
Center for Private Sector Health Initiatives
Tel: 202.884.8959
E-mail: csaade@aed.org

Mr. Christian Winger
Deputy Director, POUZN
Center for Private Sector Health Initiatives
Tel: 202.884.8779
E-mail: cwinger@aed.org

Address:
Academy for Educational Development
1875 Connecticut Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20009-5721