UN report says 2.5 billion lack basic sanitation

Tag : clean drinking water
UN report says 2.5 billion lack basic sanitation By ELIANE ENGELER
Associated Press Writer

GENEVA — The world has significantly reduced the number of people who lackaccess to clean drinking water, but far more work needs to be doneto help the 2.5 billion people worldwide who lack basic sanitationand suffer as a result, the U.N. said Thursday.
The world's poor face a much higher risk of infection and diseasessuch as cholera because they usually are left with no choice butthe bush or other open places to relieve themselves.
A joint report by UNICEF and the World Health Organization said 70percent of the people living with broken down or nonexistent sewagesystems are in Asia and 22 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. Some 1.2billion people have no sanitation at all, and use trees, fields andother outdoor places instead.
"About 5,000 children die every day from simple diarrhealdiseases," said Clarissa Brocklehurst, chief of UNICEF's water andsanitation unit. Most of the deaths are caused by inadequatesanitation, she said.
Governments have been slow at reducing the number of people livingwithout decent sanitation, despite pledging at the beginning of thedecade to cut that figure in half by 2015.
But countries are making progress in providing more people withsafe drinking water.
Around 13 percent of the world's population, or 884 million people,lack safe drinking water. That number has been almost halved since1990, the agencies' 58-page report said.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst region, with people often drinkingfrom wells, springs, rivers and lakes that are not protected fromoutside contamination.
The agencies predicted that more than 90 percent of the world'spopulation will likely have access to safe drinking water by 2015.
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