Addis Ababa — The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Procter & Gamble (P&G) hosted an event this week to highlight their partnership in providing potable water at the household level in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda, a U.S. Newswire reported Friday.

The partnership focuses on the provision of two proven, cost-effective, household level technologies to disinfect drinking water: - WaterGuard - a dilute bleach product developed by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Pan American Health Organization. - PUR - a powdered water treatment product developed by Procter & Gamble and CDC.

Shown to reduce disease and death in numerous health intervention trials, these technologies are now being used to provide safe drinking water for emergency relief, including the recent floods in Kenya and Ethiopia.

More than six million sachets of PUR and seven million bottles of WaterGuard have already been provided in Kenya, Malawi, and Ethiopia.