Experts: $20B a year needed for global water health

NEW YORK — Development experts discussed frightening statistics at a United Nations conference in an attempt to double the world's funds for improving water sanitation.

The experts said 6,000 children die each day from waterborne diseases that can easily be prevented by washing hands with soap, according to Reuters news service.

The United Nations conference is being held to prepare for another United Nations summit on sustainable development scheduled to open in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August, Reuters reported.

The problem, Reuters reported, is most pressing in poor nations' urban centers, according to the experts, who called on governments to double the $10 billion a year now spent to meet urgent safe drinking water and sanitation needs.

The experts want the summit to establish a goal to reduce by half the 2.5 billion people who have no access to sanitation by 2015. Simple acts of washing hands with soap could alone reduce diarrheal disease by one-third, they said, according to Reuters.

Intestinal worms and schistosomiasis, caused by waterborne flatworms, are other water–related conditions, Reuters said.

Margaret Catley-Carson, chairwoman of the Sweden-based Global Water Partnership, said the burdens of inadequate sanitation fall most heavily on poor women and young girls, who may carry water long distances to supply their families and avoid schooling due to the lack of private toilet facilities, according to Reuters.

Dr. Brad Mierau, Ph.D.
Vice President R&D
Innova Pure Water, Inc.
www.innovapurewater.com