Water and Sanitation is one of the primary drivers of public health. I often refer to it as “Health 101”, which means that once we can secure access to clean water and to adequate sanitation facilities for all people, irrespective of the difference in their living conditions, a huge battle against all kinds of diseases will be won.

• 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases (including cholera); 90% are children under 5, mostly in developing countries.
• 88% of diarrhoeal disease is attributed to unsafe water supply, inadequate sanitation and hygiene
• 1.2 million people die of malaria each year, 90% of whom are children under 5.
• There are 396 million episodes of malaria every year, most of the disease burden is in Africa south of the Sahara.
• An estimated 160 million people are infected with schistosomiasis.
• The disease causes tens of thousands of deaths every year, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.
• It is strongly related to unsanitary excreta disposal and absence of nearby sources of safe water.
• 500 million people are at risk from trachoma.
• 133 million people suffer from high intensity intestinal helminth infections, which often leads to severe consequences such as cognitive impairment, massive dysentery, or anaemia.
• There are 1.5 million cases of clinical hepatitis A every year.
• In Bangladesh, between 28 and 35 million people consume drinking-water with elevated levels of arsenic in their drinking-water.
• Over 26 million people in China suffer from dental fluorosis due to elevated fluoride in their drinking water.
• In China, over 1 million cases of skeletal fluorosis are thought to be attributable to drinking-water.
• Almost two billion people were affected by natural disasters in the last decade of the 20th century, 86% of them by floods and droughts.
• Flooding increases the ever-present health threat from contamination of drinking-water systems from inadequate sanitation, with industrial waste and by refuse dumps.
• Reference WHO (Facts and figures: Water, sanitation and hygiene links to health)