| Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. |
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Source: The UN Human Development Report 2006,
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/
1.8 million children under 5 die from diarrhoea every year, or 1 every 20 seconds, caused by impure drinking water and bad sanitation.
Quoting from the HDR Chapter 1:
Of the 60 million deaths in the world in 2004, 10.6 million—nearly 20%—were children
under the age of five. These fatalities accounted for a third of deaths in developing regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia but for less than 1% in rich countries.
Water and sanitation are directly implicated in a large share of deaths in children under five. The link: the 5 billion cases of diarrhoea in children each year in developing countries. These sickness episodes represent the second largest cause of childhood death after acute respiratory tract infection. They claim the lives of 1.8 million children under the age of five each year, or a daily death toll of about 4,400 young lives (figure 1.5). The number of deaths associated with the twin threats of unclean water and poor sanitation is not widely appreciated. Globally, diarrhoea kills more people than tuberculosis or malaria—five times as many children die of diarrhoea as of HIV/AIDS.”
Overall more than five million people, most of them children, die each year from illnesses caused from drinking unsafe water.
India:
1,000 children die of diarrhea every day in India
India: Second International Learning Exchange programme on WASH "Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has observed that around 1,000 children died of diarrhoea every day in India, an average toll of 41 every hour."
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