Problems of water storage in the rural village home: the Egyptian zir

Although the potential adverse health impact of domestic water storage vessels that are used frequently in developing countries has been widely recognized, a search for systemic investigations found little data. This report describes the use of water storage vessels in rural Egyptian homes. This system of storage was found to have a number of implications: (1) for quality and quantity of water used in the house, (2) for undermining the potentially positive health benefits of current and new water supply programmes and (3) for confounding the interpretation of epidemiological investigations on water-related disease transmission.