The Millennium Development Goals included a target to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015a right recognized as fundamental to human needs. Small independent water vendors are often the only water supply option in peri-urban neighbourhoods in developing countries and fill a critical gap in the municipal system, but there is concern about the quality and price of their water. Such vendors need to be recognized and regulated due to their role in meeting basic water needs. This article reflects on the lack of regulation and discusses a recent multidisciplinary research project in Kenya and Ethiopia that considered whether there is a case for regulation of competition, price and quality. It concludes that recognizing small independent water vendors as part of a regulatory framework will result in increased access to water for the poor and assist in the realization of the MDGs; the right to water; and, intergenerational equity.

Background: Early warning scores for neonatal mortality have not been designed for low income countries. We developed and validated a score to predict mortality upon admission to a NICU in Ethiopia. Methods: We conducted a retrospective case-control study at the

Background The effect of malignant diseases is increasing globally, particularly in developing countries as shown by recent cancer statistics from the world health organization reports. It is anticipated that with an increase in life expectancy consequent upon the improved standard of living and increasing urbanization, the burden of hematological malignancies in sub-Saharan Africa particularly in Ethiopia is likely to increase recently. Therefore, this study was aimed to determine the incidence and trend of hematological malignancy in Northwest Ethiopia. Methods A facility-based retrospective study was conducted from 2015 to 2019 at the University of Gondar and Bahir-Dar Felegehiwot comprehensive specialized hospitals. Hematological malignancy data were collected by using a data collection sheet that was consisted of patients’ socio-demography, clinical, and laboratory data. Then, data were entered into Epi-info 3.5.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. Skewness and kurtosis were used to check data distribution. Descriptive statistics were summarized as percentages, means, and standard deviations of background variables, and the trend were analyzed. Results In this study, a total of 1,342 study participants were included. The mean age of study participants was 41.49 ± 16.3 years with a range of 1 to 92 years. About 58.3%, 52.2%, and 80% of the cases were observed among males, 18–45 age group, and urban residences, respectively. Of the total cases, 92.9% and 7.1% were lymphoma and leukemia, respectively. On the other hand, from lymphoma cases, 72.3% and 27.7% were HL and NHL, respectively while from leukemic cases, 61.1%, 23.2, 6.3%, 4.2%, and 5.3% were CLL, ALL, CML, AML, and other HM types, respectively. In this study, there was no trend. Conclusion We concluded that lymphoma was the dominant type of hematological malignancy observed in northwest Ethiopia. The study indicated that the majority of cases were observed among male, urban residents, and adult populations aged 18–45 years. Therefore, special focus should be given to the highly affected population. Further, a prospective cohort study should be conducted for a better understanding of the prevalence and associated factors to it.

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