Facts About Drinking Water

• If no human action is taken, as many as 135,000,000 will die
  from water-related diseases by the year 2020.
• A child dies every fifteen seconds due to unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation and hygiene.
• 80% of all sickness in the world is attributable to unsafe water and sanitation.
• Women and female children spend more than 200 million hours each day collecting water from distant often polluted sources.
• In the world's poorest countries - over 5,000 children each die each day. Poor water contribute to almost 90% of these deaths.
• Every year, an estimated 19 million children under five die from diarrheal dieseas. A youngster dies every eight seconds from water-borne diseases. This year, about 2,200,000 children will die of dehydration caused by diarrhea. 80% of them in the first two years of their life.
• Worldwide 1.1 billion people live without clean water and 2.6 billion people live without toilets every day of their lives.
• People suffering from preventable diseases caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation occupy half of the hospital beds in the developing world.
• Current evidence shows that 1.7 million deaths could be avoided each year by providing access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene. The single most effective intervention is hand washing with soap, which would cut diarrhea deaths in half.

Information courtesy of the World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNESCO Water Portal, the Fresh Water Society, EDGE OUTREACH and WaterAid.