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

战略优先领域：水工程。设计/优化与水资源管理、处理和分配系统（包括废水和污水）有关的技术。关键词：WASH，过滤，疾病，可持续，疟疾血吸虫病是一种被忽视的热带疾病，感染了2.4亿多人，主要在撒哈拉以南非洲，每年造成约20万人死亡，数百万儿童和成人患重病。传播与贫穷有着内在的联系，贫穷是由水、环境卫生和个人卫生条件差造成的。个人在接触含有尾蚴的淡水时获得感染，尾蚴是寄生虫的感染性幼虫阶段，在接触时直接通过皮肤打洞。水的接触是通过取水和洗澡等行为发生的。在卫生条件不佳的地区，水污染以及通过水接触传播疾病的情况很严重，寄生虫卵随人的尿液和粪便排出。目前，大规模药物管理是主要的控制形式，但需要改善讲卫生设施，以阻断传播和减少再感染。生物过滤和慢砂过滤器是简单，成本效益高的生物技术，可用于饮用水净化。在生物过滤器内形成的复杂生物膜分解营养物质和/或消除病原体（如病毒和细菌病原体），以使水安全饮用。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/或污染物的效率或靶向去除。例如，慢砂过滤器预计也将从水中去除寄生虫，如血吸虫幼虫阶段。然而，这些技术尚未在血吸虫病流行地区进行充分优化和测试，以处理水，减少血吸虫病传播和一系列其他水传播污染物。该博士学位将解决围绕低成本水过滤系统的设计，有效性和吸收的问题，通过使用低成本，低能耗的生物过滤器来提取和处理湖水，使其安全用于饮用，洗澡和其他家庭用途。该项目将涉及1）在英国的实验室工作，使用实验室生命周期中的尾蚴设计，测试和优化过滤方法。在乌干达的实地工作将侧重于2）为未来的当地生产确定合适的、当地可用的材料，提高未来干预措施的可持续性，以及3）对来自流行病地区的家庭进行寄生虫学和流行病学研究，以评估有和没有获得处理水的家庭的过滤使用和再感染水平。通过优化生物学来去除血吸虫和其他水传播的污染物，可以在流行社区内物流和经济地制造，有效地处理传染性湖水，使其安全用于饮用，洗澡和家庭使用。具体目标包括：1：优化慢砂生物过滤器在实验室中去除和/或灭活寄生尾蚴的功效2：在社区中进行定性调查，以确定对水过滤设计和位置的偏好2：确定未来使用当地来源的材料和劳动力制造低成本过滤器的材料和技能。监测乌干达流行社区中可使用新过滤系统和未采取额外干预措施的家庭的过滤使用情况以及曼氏血吸虫感染和再感染水平。在乌干达病毒研究所的合作者的帮助下，我们获得了环境工程和微生物学、寄生虫学、现场流行病学以及对社会科学、卫生经济学和当地制造业的理解。

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.