45,000 children die of diarrhoea every year
Over 45,000 under-five children die every year in Bangladesh from diarrhea caused by contaminated water, says a report of World Health Organization.
Water contaminated with faeces puts people at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio, says the report titled “UN Water - Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water 2017”.
The report released yesterday presented an analysis of the most reliable and up-to-date data from 75 countries and 25 external support agencies on the issues related to financing water and sanitation (WASH).
According to the report, contaminated drinking water causes more than 5,00,000 diarrhoeal deaths each year globally.
Talking to The Daily Star, Dr Firoze Ahmed, former scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), said children under five were the main victims of contaminated water because of weak immune systems.
“Supply water in cities is sometimes contaminated with faeces and many people in the poor urban settlements drink it without boiling.
“It's often not known whether water marketed in jars comes from deep tube wells or river. Much of the water might be contaminated with bacteria,” said the physician who teaches microbiology at the Noakhali Science and Technology University.
Though Bangladesh made much progress in sanitation, certain hard-to-reach areas, mostly in coastal regions, lagged behind, added Firoze.
Launches plying rivers release human excreta into the rivers, polluting the water. It makes use of river water by the coastal people risky.
The physician suggested that the government should increase investment and improve management of drinking water.
According to the WHO report, 42 percent urban population in Bangladesh don't use improved sanitation facilities, while the figure is 38 percent for rural population.
Besides, 13 percent people don't have improved drinking water sources.
The UN body found that the Bangladesh government increased its budget for WASH from $308m in 2013 to $548m in 2015, which was not enough.
Bangladesh's total WASH expenditure was 0.41 percent of its GDP, while the per capita WASH expense was $5. Half of the WASH finance in Bangladesh came from households, 23 percent from external sources and the rest from the government, said the report.
It said planned investments were yet to take into account the much more ambitious SDG target, which aimed for universal access to safely managed water and sanitation services by 2030.
Maria Neira, WHO director at the Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, said: “Today, almost two billion people use a source of drinking water contaminated with faeces, putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio.”
The report said many countries were not increasing their budget fast enough to meet the water and sanitation targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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