More than one billion people worldwide do not have access to safe drinking water – i.e. around 1/6th of the world’s population.
Five million people, mostly children, die each year from waterborne disease.
In the past 10 years diarrhoea has killed more children than all the people lost to armed conflict since World War II.
At any one time, approximately half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from waterborne disease.
Diarrhea kills over three million people per year and chronic diarrhoea is a leading killer of people with AIDS.
The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is 6 km.
The average weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads can be anything up to 20kg – the equivalent of your airport luggage allowance!
One of the Millennium Development Goals of the UN is: “By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water”.
The WHO default levels for the quantities of drinking water are: 1 litre water/day for a 10 kg child2 litre water/day for a 60 kg adult
