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

doi:10.1136/bmj.a629

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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 sanitationand hygiene could prevent about 9.1% of the total burden ofdisease worldwide, or 6.3 % of all deaths, a report from theWorld Health Organization estimates.

The report, which provides country by country estimates of theprevalence of disease in 192 nations, concludes that 80% ofthe world’s cases of diarrhoea are attributable to "unsafewater, 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 casesof underweight or malnutrition in children are "associated withrepeated diarrhoea or intestinal nematode infections."

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

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

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