Disease
In the developing world nearly 900 million people do not have access to safe water and 2.5 billion lack adequate sanitation. As a result, water-related diseases are easily spread, with debilitating effects that keep adults out of productive work and children out of school.
Young children are very vulnerable to water-related diseases. Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull
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The weakest members of communities are the most vulnerable, with water-related diseases claiming the lives of 5,000 children a day. Repeated incidences of diarrhea also lead to malnutrition, which weakens the body's ability to fight other infections.
WaterAid’s work providing clean water, effective sanitation and good hygiene is designed to dramatically reduce the spread of diseases, particularly by stopping people ingesting the pathogens found in human fecal matter.
The main water and sanitation related diseases can be divided
into three groups:
- Diarrheal diseases are the most deadly of the water and sanitation diseases, killing over two million people every year- mostly children under the age of five. There are approximately four billion cases of diarrhea each year which are caused by more than 100 different bacteria or viruses.
Diarrhea causes the rapid depletion of water and sodium in the sufferer. If more than 10% of the body’s fluid is lost the sufferer dies. Children who are malnourished suffer the most, becoming even weaker and more malnourished as diarrhea progresses. 50% of deaths from diarrhea are from acute watery diarrhea (including cholera) where the sufferer cannot be rehydrated, 35% are through persistent diarrhea (lasting 14 days or longer) and 15% through dysentery (or bloody diarrhea).
- Diseases caused by worms are spread when people ingest worm eggs, or larvae penetrate the skin. Bilharzia is a disease caused by a small flat worm which lives in the veins of pelvic organs. Over 200 million people are infected and the
disease causes 20,000 deaths a year. Other diseases caused by worms include guinea worm and hookworm.
- Water washed diseases are caused by water scarcity where people cannot wash themselves, their clothes or home regularly. They include trachoma, an eye infection and skin infections such as scabies.
All of these are caused by the spread of micro-organisms called pathogens, which include viruses, bacteria, protozoa and helminths (parasitic worms).
In environments where there is poor hygiene, open defecation
and/or unsafe water, pathogens can easily be spread around
a community. While not classified as a water and sanitation
related disease, malaria is also exacerbated by these conditions.
Download WaterAid's information sheet on Diseases
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Ghana
Blinded by trachoma
Nyaama, 56, lives in the village of Aurigo in the Upper East Region of Ghana, where there is no safe water supply.
She has been blind for over 30 years, since she contracted trachoma, an eye disease attributable to the lack of clean water.
“I do not understand exactly why I went blind but I know it was to do with the water here as where I grew up had clean water and I was fine but when I came here and used the dirty water my problems started," she recounted.
"My sight went slowly – for a while I could see in the afternoon but not at night, but now I see nothing. If I hadn’t become blind I could have worked like the others who aren’t blind and earned money.
"Now when I go to fetch water a child has to lead me there.Other people get hernias in their stomachs or diarrhea because of the water. The most important thing we need in this village is water,” continued Nyaama.
WaterAid is a member of the International Trachoma Initiative, which is dedicated to the elimination of trachoma, the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness.
Photo: WaterAid / Jon Spaull