Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The Asia-Pacific region faces the challenge of having 369 million people without access to basic sanitation services and 163 million people lacking access to basic drinking water. UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) has been working in the area of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in 26 countries in the region with the intent of helping countries reach Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which targets universal and equitable water, sanitation and hygiene for all by 2030.  This report provides a summary of the progress, major WASH results achieved, and lessons learned in the East Asia and Pacific Region in 2020. It also provides a brief financial analysis as well as a narrative on challenges that the region faces— dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the report offers a look into the WASH programme in 2021 and what the future of WASH must look like in order for us to meet national goals as well as the SDGs.

This global progress report on water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management and cleaning (WASH) in health care facilities comes at an unprecedented moment, when coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is exposing key vulnerabilities in health systems, such as inadequate infection prevention and control. WASH services in health care facilities, so often taken for granted – or as this report highlights, outright neglected – are needed more than ever to protect vulnerable health workers and patients. The report identifies major global gaps in WASH services: one third of health care facilities do not have what is needed to clean hands where care is provided; one in four facilities lack basic water services, and one in 10 have no sanitation services.

Global school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic affect up to 1.6 billion children and present an unprecedented risk to their education and well-being. WHO and UNICEF guidelines on infection prevention in schools identify a range of measures that need to be in place for schools to reopen and operate safely, including regular hand-washing with soap and water, daily disinfection and basic drinking water and sanitation services.

Unlike the H1N1 influenza virus, to which younger people were relatively more susceptible, and Ebola, where adolescents were at greater risk than younger children but at lower risk than the most-affected age group (35–44 years), the demographic burden of covid-19 is highly skewed towards older persons aged 70 and over. Age-disaggregated statistics suggest that adolescents are least likely to be hospitalised and to die from covid-19. Young people have typically been portrayed in the mainstream media as ‘part of the problem’ – as both vectors of the disease and as reluctant to adopt preventive measures, rather than as key actors to be proactively included in the emergency and recovery responses.  As the spike in unemployment and predictions of global recession underline, Covid-19 is not only an unprecedented health crisis but also a profound economic and social one. This is the first in a series of briefs. It focuses on the short-term effects of covid-19 and associated lockdowns on adolescent girls and boys in LMICs. The next brief will focus on the effects of the pandemic six months after lockdowns.

Washing hands frequently and properly with soap and water is critical to preventing diseases. Yet the latest global estimates find that 3 billion people lacked soap and water at home, 900 million children lacked soap and water at their school, and 40% of health care facilities were not equipped to practice hand hygiene at points of care. Adequate water, sanitation and hygiene services for households, schools and healthcare facilities are essential to prevent the spread of infectious diseases including COVID-19. The low levels of coverage of these basic services in many parts of the world reflect substantial inequalities between and within countries and contribute to the vulnerability of these populations to the pandemic.

This brief is meant to provide information specific to infant and young child feeding (IYCF)in the context of COVID-19. This Brief does not cover wider mitigation and response measures available in other guidance. As a nutrition community, we will continue to develop our understanding on practical solutions to deliver programming in the context of COVID-19. Documenting and disseminating these lessons and emerging evidence will be key to implementing the most appropriate and effective responses in the face of this pandemic.