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Stockholm - Almost a third of people in the world have no access to a toilet, a privation that has dramatic consequences and leads to millions of deaths each year, experts at a water conference said this week.Children, highly susceptible to hygiene-related diseases, are the main victims."Diarrhoea resulting from poor sanitation and hygiene is responsible for the death of more than two million impoverished children each year," the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said during the World Water Week conference gathering some 2 500 international experts in the Swedish capital.According to SIWI spokesperson David Trouba, 50 to 70% of the world's hospitals are full of patients suffering from easily-preventable water-related diseases.And the World Health Organisation estimates that 80% of all sickness in the world is attributable to unsafe water and sanitation. Yet the problem has not attracted the attention it deserves and is described as the "orphan child" of the water sector, often underexplored and underfinanced."It's one of those untold stories of the development sector," said Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment in India and a prominent expert at the conference."One reason is the taboo part. You don't talk about these issues so easily, it's a private thing," lamented Johan Kuylenstierna, the director of World Water Week.But Narain noted with a hint of optimism that governments were beginning to make the issue a priority.Sanitation and hygiene conditions have wide-ranging implications on society...To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
