Perception of Drinking Water and Diseases Associated with it in the Rural Areas of Sindh, Pakistan

In the rural areas the vast majority of people mostly on drinking ground water. Ground water in some areas
contains contaminants and heavy metals, and bacteria and amoeba and other pathogens, which might cause
number of diseases. The quality of drinking water and its associated diseases have not been extensively studied
in the rural areas of Sindh. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the level of perception of respondents living
in the rural areas of Sindh. This was a cross sectional survey based study carried out from January 2016 to
December 2016. Data was collected through the interview based structured questionnaire. Out of 241, majority
of the respondents were drinking ground water (56%) and (27.8%) were using the treated water as the drinking
water source. 12% were using surface water and only 1.3% relied on drinking bottled water and 2.9% were
using boiled water as the source of drinking water. The highest reported disease was diarrhea (38.6%) followed
by the vomiting. (19.1%). 15.3% reported that they suffered from kidney problems and 5.8% reported to suffer
from hepatitis. 21.2% responded that they did not suffer from any water borne diseases during the reported
year.