AIDS researchers have made many advances in the quest to find cheap, simple treatments to prevent an HIV-infected mother from passing the virus to her baby, but obstacles still exist at every turn. In poor African countries, women typically breast-feed, which also can transmit HIV. Infant formula often costs more than people earn. For people who can afford formula, which some places do subsidize, they must use clean water to make it or they will increase the risk of their babies contracting life-threatening diarrheal disease. And while clean water often pours from the tap, it quickly turns dirty when stored in the type of plastic jugs and buckets that these children in Pumwani, Kenya are filling. A study of Abidjan water recently completed by researchers at Projet RETRO-CI drives home this point. Although 100% of the 120 households studied had access to clean municipal water, 83% used stored water in their homes. Tests showed that Escherichia coli had contaminated 41% of 87 samples taken from stored water.

(Photograph by Malcolm Linton)

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