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

doi:10.1136/bmj.a629

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John Zarocostas

¹Geneva

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 …