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Safer drinking water and better sanitation could lower disease burden by 9%, says WHO

John Zarocostas

1 Geneva

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Better access to safe drinking water and improvements in sanitation and hygiene could prevent about 9.1% of the total burden of disease worldwide, or 6.3 % of all deaths, a report from the World Health Organization estimates.

The report, which provides country by country estimates of the prevalence of disease in 192 nations, concludes that 80% of the world’s cases of diarrhoea are attributable to "unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and insufficient hygiene."

"These result in 1.5 million deaths each year, most being children," it says.

Moreover, the report points out that an estimated 50% of cases of underweight or malnutrition in children are "associated with repeated diarrhoea or intestinal nematode infections."

The agency estimates that each year underweight in children is responsible for about 70 000 deaths, while unsafe water and poor sanitation and hygiene account for the deaths of 860 000 children under the age of 5 years.

Similarly, . . . [Full text of this article]


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