WHO plans better world water supply to cut disease

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes to halve the numbers of people without access to water supply and sanitation by 2015 and drastically cut the planet's annual death toll from water-borne diseases.

In a global report launched in Brazil Wednesday, WHO said it also aimed to provide universal access to water supply, sanitation and hygiene within the next 25 years -- all at an estimated extra cost of some $7 billion a year globally.

"That is a lot of money but it is less than a tenth of what Europe spends on alcohol every year. It is well under half of what the United States spends on pet food every year," said Richard Jolly, chairman of the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).

The report, co-authored by WHO, WSSCC and the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF, said 1.1 billion people worldwide had no improved water supply and 2.4 billion had no improved sanitation. Most of them lived in Asia and Africa.

These figures represented more than one-sixth and two-fifths of the world's population respectively, it said.

"To achieve these goals, for drinking water we will need to raise investments by 30 percent and double investments for sanitation in the next 15 years on a global average," said Jose Hueb, a WHO co-coordinator who worked on the report.

"This is a problem of dignity and respect for basic human rights. Everybody has a basic right to have access to drinking water. This is a fundamental problem on a global level."

WHO's goals for 2015 call for improved sanitation access for 2.2 billion more people and water supply access for 1.6 billion people. This would require providing water for 292,000 people and sanitation facilities to 397,000 people every day for the next 15 years, it said.

Improving these essential services worldwide, especially in developing countries, would also sharply reduce the numbers of people suffering from diseases such as diarrhea, intestinal worms and blindness caused by trachoma.

Every year, 2.2 million people die of diarrhea out of the four billion cases reported and most of the deaths are children under five years old -- equivalent to one child dying every 15 seconds or 20 jumbo jets crashing every day, it said.

Better water and sanitation could cut diarrheal disease by up to a third, Hueb said.

Most of the work which will be required to achieve the stated goals for 2015 and 2025 is expected to be in Asia where only 48 percent of the population has sanitation coverage -- by far the lowest of any region in the world.

"The absolute needs in Asia outstrip those of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined," the report said.

"This does not mean that the needs of the poor are any more acute in Asia than elsewhere, only that the majority of people without access to water supply and sanitation services are in Asia," it said. Asia's total water coverage was also the second lowest in the world, after Africa, at 81 percent.

WSSCC's Jolly said nearly 50 of the world's developing countries had already achieved an average 90 percent coverage of water and 90 percent of sanitation.

"It can be done...there needs to be commitment from central government but reliance on people and institutions for implementation," he said.

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