Water Facts and Figures

1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe water, roughly one-sixth of the world’s population. 2.4 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, about two-fifths of the world’s population. 2.2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. Some 6,000 children die every day from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene – equivalent to 20 jumbo jets crashing every day. At any one time it is estimated that half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases. 200 million people in the world are infected with schistosomiasis, of whom 20 million suffer severe consequences. The disease is still found in 74 countries of the world. Scientific studies show that a 77% reduction of incidence from the disease was achieved through well designed water and sanitation interventions. The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is 6 km. The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is the equivalent of your airport luggage allowance (20kg). The average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water a day. The average person in the United Kingdom uses 135 litres of water every day. One flush of your toilet uses as much water as the average person in the developing world uses for a whole day’s washing, cleaning, cooking and drinking. Comparative costs: In Europe $11 billion is spent each year on ice cream; in USA and Europe, $17 billion is spent on pet food; in Europe $105 billion is spent annually on alcoholic drinks, ten times the amount required to ensure water, sanitation and hygiene for all. In the past 10 years diarrhoea has killed more children than all the people lost to armed conflict since World War II. In China, India and Indonesia twice as many people are dying from diarrhoeal diseases as from HIV/AIDS. In 1998, 308,000 people died from war in Africa, but more than two million (six times as many) died of diarrhoeal disease. The population of the Kibeira slum in Nairobi, Kenya pay up to five times the price for a litre of water than the average American citizen. An estimated 25% of people in developing country cities use water vendors purchasing their water at significantly higher prices than piped water. Projections for 2025 indicate that the number of people living in water-stressed countries will increase to 3 billion – a six-fold increase. Today, 470 million people live in regions where severe shortages exist. The simple act of washing hands with soap and water can reduce diarrhoeal disease by one-third. Following the introduction of the Guatemalan Handwashing Initiative in 1998, there were 322,000 fewer cases of diarrhoea each year amongst the 1.5 million children under 5 nationwide in the country's lowest income groups. In Zambia, one in five children die before their fifth birthday. In contrast in the UK fewer than 1% of children die before they reach the age of five. A study in Karachi found that people living in areas without adequate sanitation who had no hygiene education spend six times more on medical treatments than those with sanitation facilities. Waterborne diseases (the consequence of a combination of lack of clean water supply and inadequate sanitation) cost the Indian economy 73 million working days a year. And a cholera outbreak in Peru in the early 1990s cost the economy US$1 billion in lost tourism and agricultural exports in just 10 weeks. Improved water quality reduces childhood diarrhoea by 15-20% BUT better hygiene through handwashing and safe food handling reduces it by 35% AND safe disposal of children’s faeces leads to a reduction of nearly 40%. At any time, 1.5 billion people suffer from parasitic worm infections stemming from human excreta and solid wastes in the environment. Intestinal worms can be controlled through better sanitation, hygiene and water. These parasites can lead to malnutrition, anaemia and retarded growth, depending upon the severity of the infection. It is estimated that pneumonia, diarrhoea, tuberculosis and malaria, which account for 20% of global disease burden, receive less than 1% of total public and private funds devoted to health research. Ecological sanitation is one option being practised in some communities in China, Mexico, Vietnam, etc. Excreta contains valuable nutrients. We produce 4.56 kg nitrogen, 0.55 kg phosphorous, and 1.28 kg potassium per person per year from faeces and urine. This is enough to produce wheat and maize for one person every year. One gramme of faeces can contains:10,000,000 Viruses, 1,000,000 bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts, 100 parasite eggs. For more information, check http://www.wsscc.org/ Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council c/o WHO (CCW), 20 Avenue Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland. Tel. +41 22 791 3544, fax +41 22 791 4847, e-mail: wsscc@who.ch Sources 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25: WaterAid 6, 25: WELL Technical Brief (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/) 16: Water for African Cities presentation, Stockholm Water Symposium, August 2001 12: Vision 21 – Water For People, March 2000, WSSCC 1, 2, 3, 4, 19: WHO/UNICEF/WSSCC Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 Report 17: WELL Planned Work studies 163 and 164. 20: Saadé et al (2001) The Story of a Successful Public-Private Partnership in Central America: Handwashing for Diarroheal Disease Prevention. BASICS, EHP, UNICEF, USAID and The World Bank 27: (Esrey and Andersson (1999), Environmental Sanitation from an Ecological Systems Approach. See:www.wsscc.org) 26: (10/90 Report on Health Research, 2000. Global Forum for Health Research) 18: (IHE Newsletter, January 2001) 28: (Advocating Sanitation - how, why and when? Sanitation Connection:http://www.sanicon.net/titles/topicintro.php3/topicId=1)