| 1.1 billion people lack access to an improved water supply
- approximately one in six people on earth.
A person can live weeks without food, but only days without water.
2.6 billion people in the world lack access to improved sanitation.
Less than 1% of the world's fresh water (or about 0.007% of all
water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use.
A person needs 4 to 5 gallons of water per day to survive. The
average American individual uses 100 to 176 gallons of water at
home each day. The average African family uses about 5 gallons
of water each day.
Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting
water from distant, often polluted sources.
Water systems fail at a rate of 50% or higher.
Every $1 spent on water and sanitation creates on average another
$8 in costs averted and productivity gained.
Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water live
on less $2 a day.
Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more for
per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city.
Water-Related Disease Facts
Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease.
For children under age five, water-related diseases are the leading
cause of death.
At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are
occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.
1.8 million children die each year from diarrhea – 4,900
deaths each day.
No intervention has greater overall impact upon national development
and public health than the provision of safe drinking water and
the proper disposal of human waste.
Human health improvements are influenced not only by the use
of clean water, but also by personal hygiene habits and the use
of sanitation facilities.
Close to half of all people in developing countries are suffering
at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation
deficits.
The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease
than any war claims through guns.
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