Health News
UN: 87 per cent of world has access to safe drinking water
Mar 15, 2010, 17:00 GMT
Geneva - Some 5.9 billion people, or 87 per cent of the world's population, now have access to safe drinking water, the United Nations said Monday.
Also, open defecation, which the UN termed 'the riskiest sanitation practice of all,' is on the decline, with a global decrease from 25 per cent in 1990 to 17 per cent in 2008, according to a report.
The joint study by the World Health Organization and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), noted, however, that 2.6 billion people were still living without improved sanitation facilities.
Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene claim the lives of an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five each year, the UN said.
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