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

战略重点领域：水利工程。设计/优化与水资源管理、处理和分配系统（包括废水和污水）相关的技术。关键词：WASH、过滤、疾病、可持续、血吸虫病血吸虫病是一种被忽视的热带疾病，感染超过 2.4 亿人，主要分布在撒哈拉以南非洲地区，每年导致约 20 万人死亡，并导致数百万儿童和成人患重病。传播与贫困有着内在的联系，贫困是由恶劣的水、环境卫生和个人卫生 (WASH) 条件造成的。当个体接触含有尾蚴的淡水时就会受到感染，尾蚴是寄生虫的感染性幼虫阶段，接触后会直接穿过皮肤。水接触是通过接水和洗澡等行为发生的。在卫生条件不足的地区，水污染以及通过水接触传播疾病的情况很严重，寄生虫卵通过人体尿液和粪便排出。目前，大规模药物管理是主要的控制形式，但需要改进 WASH 设施来阻断传播并减少再感染。生物过滤和慢砂过滤器是简单、经济高效的生物技术，可用于饮用水净化。生物过滤器内形成的复杂生物膜会分解营养物质和/或消除病原体（例如病毒和细菌病原体），使水可以安全饮用。然而，生物学通常没有被完全理解，因此没有完全优化特定病原体和/或污染物的效率或有针对性的去除。例如，慢砂过滤器预计也能去除水中的寄生虫，例如血吸虫幼虫阶段。然而，这些技术尚未在血吸虫流行地区进行全面优化和测试，用于处理水以减少血吸虫病传播和一系列其他水传播污染物。该博士将解决围绕低成本水过滤系统的设计、有效性和采用的问题，通过使用低成本、低能耗的生物过滤器提取和处理湖水，使其安全用于饮用、沐浴和其他家庭用途。该项目将涉及 1) 在英国实验室工作，利用实验室生命周期中的尾蚴设计、测试和优化过滤方法。乌干达的实地工作将侧重于 2) 为未来当地制造寻找合适的、当地可用的材料，增强未来干预措施的可持续性，以及 3) 与流行地区的家庭进行寄生虫学和流行病学研究，以评估有或没有获得处理过的水的家庭的过滤使用情况和再感染水平。总体目标是开发一种生物过滤系统，通过优化生物学来去除血吸虫和其他水传播污染物，该系统可以在流行社区内进行物流和经济实惠的制造，有效处理传染性湖水，使其可以安全饮用、沐浴和家庭使用。具体目标包括：1：优化慢砂生物过滤器在实验室中去除和/或灭活血吸虫尾蚴的功效2：在社区中进行定性调查，以确定水过滤设计和位置的偏好2：确定未来使用当地采购的材料和劳动力制造低成本过滤器的材料和技能。3：监测乌干达流行社区家庭中的过滤使用情况以及曼氏血吸虫感染和再感染水平新的过滤系统和没有额外干预的系统。我们将通过乌干达病毒研究所的合作者获得环境工程和微生物学、寄生虫学、现场流行病学方面的技能，并了解社会科学、卫生经济学和当地制造业。

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.