Millions at risk from contaminated water
Date: 25-Mar-02
Country: UK
Author: Hannah Cowdy
The Human Waste report by British development agencies Tearfund and WaterAid said lack of basic sanitation in large parts of the developing world produced a fertile breeding ground for otherwise preventable diseases.
"People suffering from water-borne diseases occupy half the world's hospital beds," it said last week, adding that in China, India and Indonesia the death rate from diarrhoeal diseases was twice that from HIV/AIDS.
Published to coincide with United Nations World Water Day, the report said 2.4 billion people - or 40 percent of the world's population - were without adequate sanitation.
"World governments have virtually ignored the provision of sanitation for the world's poorest people when setting goals for poverty reduction," said Tearfund's Joanne Green.
"But if they agreed to spend 11 billion pounds a year - the same amount that Europeans and Americans spend on dog food - water-related disease around the globe could be halved," she added in a statement.
The report said nearly 6,000 children died each day from conditions like diarrhoea caused by a lack of clean water and adequate toilet facilities.
The report said governments faced "an historic opportunity" to tackle the issue of poor sanitation at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August, and urged Britain to use the occasion to push for urgent global action.
"Major progress towards reducing world poverty will falter until water and sanitation problems are urgently tackled," said WaterAid's Stephen Turner.
The report urged governments to promote and secure a global agreement and action plan to halve the number of people without adequate sanitation by 2015, and for everyone by 2025.