WHO: 2 B people drinking contaminated water exposed to diseases

MANILA, Philippines - The World Health Organization (WHO) has underscored the need for countries to increase investment in water and sanitation to meet the targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as it warned that almost two billion people currently consume feces-contaminated water, putting them at risk of contracting such diseases as cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio.

“Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause more than 500,000 diarrheal deaths each year and is a major factor in several neglected tropical diseases, including intestinal worms, schistosomiasis and trachoma,” WHO director for the Department of Public Health, Environment and Social Determinants of Health Maria Neira said in a statement.

Based on a new report that the WHO published on behalf of United Nations (UN)-Water, the UN’s inter-agency coordination mechanism for all freshwater-related issues, including sanitation, “a radical increase in water and sanitation investment is required to meet development targets.”

The report showed that countries would not meet global aspirations of universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation unless steps are taken to use financial resources more efficiently and increase efforts to identify new sources of funding.

According to the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) 2017 report, countries have increased their budget allocations for water, sanitation and hygiene at an annual average rate of 4.9 percent over the last three years.

Yet, 80 percent of the countries report that water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) financing is still insufficient to meet nationally defined targets for WASH services.

In many developing countries, current national coverage targets are based on achieving access to basic infrastructure, which may not always provide continuously safe and reliable services.

Planned investments have yet to take into account the much more ambitious SDG targets, which aim for universal access to safely managed water and sanitation services by 2030.

To meet the SDG global targets, the World Bank estimates that investments in infrastructure need to triple to $114 billion per year – a figure which does not include operating and maintenance costs.