Resumo

The provision of safe water, sanitation and hygienic conditions is essential for protecting human health (WHO, 2020). The most important effect of ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all is the improvement of world health. For instance, during infectious diseases outbreaks, the access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene are essential as a combat instrument (Taylor et al., 2015; WHO, 2020). In the outbreak of the new coronavirus disease, this is not different.

By the time this paper was written, Brazil figured the 6th position in number of deaths per 100 000 inhabitants (John Hopkins University of Medicine, 2020). Poor sanitation conditions may be pointed out as one of the main causes of such status: more than 30 million people do not have access to clean water and about half of the inhabitants (99.9 million people) do not have their swage collected (SNIS, 2019). Considering such scenario, we seek to understand if Brazilian municipalities with worst sanitation indexes account for more cases of Covid-19.

Studies relate poor sanitation to infectious outcomes, such as diarrhea and cholera (Taylor et al., 2015; Vasquéz & Aksan, 2015). Contamination of water supplies has been historically recognized as a risk for human health, since water can provide a vehicle for pathogen spread, creating the conditions for outbreaks cases of infection (La Rosa et al., 2020). Despite the vast number of papers that relate sanitation with infectious diseases, there are only a few studies that relate sanitation to specific viral infections, such as Covid-19.

To pursue the objective of this paper, the model adopted is based on a Negative Binomial Regression . In the model, the dependent variable is the number of total infection cases for 100000 inhabitants in each municipality and the explanatory variables are sanitation indicators for each of these municipalities (SNIS, 2019): IN055 (total water supply rate) and IN056 (total sewage collection rate).

The results of the negative binomial regression show that both the water supply and the sewage collection indicators are statistically significant to explain the number of Covid-19 cases per 100 000 inhabitants in each municipality (P>|z| is less than 5%).

Sanitation interventions take a considerable to be implemented, therefore, improvements on W&S figures will not take place on the short term. Nevertheless, this study indicated that advances in this sector are essential to prevent not only infectious and nutritional outcomes very well linked to the lack of sanitation, but also new diseases, such as Covid-19, for which there are still little knowledge and treatment options. Developing the W&S sector is a successful way of reducing the spread of many infectious diseases.

La Rosa, C., Bonadona, L., Lucentini, L., Kenmoe, S., Suffredini, E. (2020). Coronavirus in water environments: Occurency, persistence and concentration methods – A scouping review. Water research, 179. Taylor, D.L., Kahawita, T.M., Cairncross, S., Ensink, J.H.J. (2015) The Impact of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Interventions to Control Cholera: A Systematic Review. PLoS One, 10(8). Vasquéz, W.F. & Aksan, A.M. (2015) Water, sanitation, and diarrhea incidence among children: evidence from Guatemala. Water Policy 17, 932–945.