Water is one of the important requirements for human health and life. However, it is also the most effective carrier of pathogens causing a number of infectious diseases. Water borne diseases are the most common prevalent infectious diseases in developing countries especially in rural areas, and is still a major public health and environmental concern. The living conditions in rural areas are poor, which makes rural populations more vulnerable to inaccessibility to safe drinking water and high risk of water borne diseases. Water safety in a community depends on a range of factors, from the quality of source water to storage and handling in the domestic setting. This is a descriptive cross sectional community based study conducted in East Nile locality in the capital state of Khartoum in Sudan among 384 households from April to June 2019, to assess water handling practices on a household level and the factors associated with the prevalence of water borne diseases. A questionnaire was used to collect data and the data was analysed by using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). The result revealed that artesian wells were the commonest source of drinking water used by 81% of participants. The majority of the respondents (80.2%) didn’t treat their water at household level and only 3% used boiling. 2.9% of the respondents washed their hands before collecting water, 3.4% of the respondents cleaned their water container regularly and 91.7% covered their water collection container. The prevalence of water borne diseases was 79% and diarrhoeal disease were the most prevalent water borne diseases among households in all the selected villages accounting for 52.1% of the total followed by typhoid fever at 38%. The study concluded that the practice of hygienic water handling practices among participants was poor. Source of drinking water, socioeconomic status as well as the adoption of measures to treat water were the major factors responsible for the occurrence of waterborne/diarrheal disease.

Keywords : Water Borne Diseases, Drinking Water, Diarrhoea, Water Handling Practices.