UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / 29 June 2008 -- A recently released report by the World Health Organization, Safe Water, Better Health, provides for the first time ever a country-by-country estimate of the burden of disease attributable to water, sanitation and hygiene. 

Evidence presented in the report shows that almost one tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources.

Through improvements related to drinking-water, sanitation, hygiene and water resource management, senseless human suffering would be prevented in the following numbers: 

• 1.4 million child deaths per year due to diarrhoeal diseases 

• 860,000 child deaths per year due to malnutrition 

• 2 billion intestinal nematode infections - affecting one third of the world's population

• 25 million seriously incapacitated people due to lymphatic filariasis - transmitted by mosquitoes breeding in contaminated water

• 5 million visually impaired people due to trachoma

• half a million deaths due to malaria

The report proceeds to calculate the annual benefits from various interventions, such as ensuring 'universal access to improved water and sanitation services by 2015' that would yield US$ 262,879 in benefits annually for developing regions and Eurasia, according to a benefit-cost ratio of 10.

WHO's comprehensive analysis provides the long-awaited epidemiological evidence and economic arguments for supporting policy decisions, effective interventions, their costs and impacts, setting out the implications for financing. 

Outlining the paths for preventive action by relevant water resource management and public health actors, the report highlights how water, sanitation and hygiene strategies are critical and cost-effective in national governments' pursuit of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. 

Safe Water, Better Health can be downloaded at http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/safer_water/en/index.html

Labels: United Nations, U.N., MaximsNews WATER, water, sanitation, water and sanitation, hygiene, public health, WHO, World Health Organization, global burden of disease, Safe Water, Better Health, diarrhea, malnutrition, malaria, trachoma, Millennium Development Goal, MDG, Marisha Wojciechowska-Shibuya, international development, environment, water news, water sustainability, water resource, water management, global water crisis, sustainable development

 

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