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More than 4,000 children die every day from unsafe water: WHO/UNICEF
Contaminated water and poor sanitation are responsible for the deaths of more than one and a half million children last year alone.
That according to a joint report on progress being made towards realizing the Millennium Development Goal of providing clean water and sanitation, launched in Geneva Tuesday by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
The Assistant Director-General of WHO Ms. Susan Weber-Mosdorf, says those deaths are from largely preventable waterborne illnesses including diarrhoeal diseases.
"Improved water and sanitation is a question of life and death for millions of people around the globe. Every year, approximately 1.6 million children under the age of five die as result of unsafe water and poor sanitation."
Ms. Weber-Mosdorf says for those children, the predicted global water crisis is already a reality.
And she says focus should be on two particular groups: the rural poor and rapidly growing numbers of people living on the edges of expanding cities which are developing without planning.
