Effects of an urban sanitation intervention on childhood enteric infection and diarrhea in Maputo, Mozambique: a controlled before-and-after trial
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom
- Georgia Institute of Technology, United States
- WE Consult, Mozambique
- Instituto Nacional de Saúde, Mozambique
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
- Yale-NUS College, Singapore
Abstract
We conducted a controlled before-and-after trial to evaluate the impact of an onsite urban sanitation intervention on the prevalence of enteric infection, soil transmitted helminth re-infection, and diarrhea among children in Maputo, Mozambique. A non-governmental organization replaced existing poor-quality latrines with pour-flush toilets with septic tanks serving household clusters. We enrolled children aged 1-48 months at baseline and measured outcomes before and 12 and 24 months after the intervention, with concurrent measurement among children in a comparable control arm. Despite nearly exclusive use, we found no evidence that intervention affected the prevalence of any measured outcome after 12 or 24 months of exposure. Among children born into study sites after intervention, we observed a reduced prevalence of Trichuris and Shigella infection relative to the same age group at baseline (<2 years old). Protection from birth may be important to reduce exposure to and infection with enteric pathogens in this setting.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data files and code have been provided for all analyses and specifically for Figure 1 and Tables 1, 2, and 3. Additionally, we have archived all data and code at Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/me2tx, DOI 17605/OSF.IO/ME2TX).
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1137224)
- Oliver Cumming
- Joe Brown
United States Agency for International Development (GHS-A-00-09-00015-00)
- Oliver Cumming
- Joe Brown
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: The study protocol was approved by the Comité Nacional de Bioética para a Saúde (CNBS),Ministério da Saúde (333/CNBS/14), the Research Ethics Committee of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (reference # 8345), and the Institutional Review Board of theGeorgia Institute of Technology (protocol # H15160).
Copyright
© 2021, Knee et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Effects of an urban sanitation intervention on childhood enteric infection and diarrhea in Maputo, Mozambique: a controlled before-and-after trial
eLife 10:e62278.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62278
Further reading
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Background: The role of circulating metabolites on child development is understudied. We investigated associations between children's serum metabolome and early childhood development (ECD).
Methods: Untargeted metabolomics was performed on serum samples of 5,004 children aged 6-59 months, a subset of participants from the Brazilian National Survey on Child Nutrition (ENANI-2019). ECD was assessed using the Survey of Well-being of Young Children's milestones questionnaire. The graded response model was used to estimate developmental age. Developmental quotient (DQ) was calculated as the developmental age divided by chronological age. Partial least square regression selected metabolites with a variable importance projection ≥ 1. The interaction between significant metabolites and the child's age was tested.
Results: Twenty-eight top-ranked metabolites were included in linear regression models adjusted for the child's nutritional status, diet quality, and infant age. Cresol sulfate (β = -0.07; adjusted-p < 0.001), hippuric acid (β = -0.06; adjusted-p < 0.001), phenylacetylglutamine (β = -0.06; adjusted-p < 0.001), and trimethylamine-N-oxide (β = -0.05; adjusted-p = 0.002) showed inverse associations with DQ. We observed opposite directions in the association of DQ for creatinine (for children aged -1 SD: β = -0.05; p =0.01; +1 SD: β = 0.05; p =0.02) and methylhistidine (-1 SD: β = - 0.04; p =0.04; +1 SD: β = 0.04; p =0.03).
Conclusion: Serum biomarkers, including dietary and microbial-derived metabolites involved in the gut-brain axis, may potentially be used to track children at risk for developmental delays.
Funding: Supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Brazilian National Research Council.
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