- If an episode of diarrhoea lasts less than 14 days, it is acute diarrhoea. Acute watery diarrhoea causes dehydration and contributes to malnutrition. The death of a child with acute diarrhoea is usually due to dehydration.
2.2 million children under the age of 5 die from diarrhoea every year. That’s 1 child dying every 14 seconds.
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- Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection. Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most occupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities.
- 88% of cases of diarrhoea worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene. 90% of all deaths caused by diarrheal diseases are children under 5 years of age, mostly in developing countries.
- At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.
- The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter. Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvements reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a sustainable way.
- It is estimated that improved sanitation facilities could reduce diarrhea-related deaths in young children by more than one-third. If hygiene promotion is added, such as teaching proper hand washing, deaths could be reduced by two thirds. It would also help accelerate economic and social development in countries where sanitation is a major cause of lost work and school days because of illness.
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