The Case for Sanitation: Government failure to tackle global child mortality

Every year 9.7 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday. A new WaterAid report “Tacking the silent killer: The case for sanitation” asserts that improved sanitation could bring the single greatest reduction in these child deaths.

WaterAid’s report reveals that the current statistics on child mortality may be underestimating how many child deaths are attributable to poor sanitation. According to the report inadequate sanitation may be the biggest killer of children under the age of five, yet no governments are prioritising the issue, instead sanitation is the most neglected of all the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) sectors.

The report, released at the G8 Hokkaido summit in Japan, explores how the sanitation sector is being chronically and institutionally neglected by donors and developing country governments alike, resulting in as many as 2.4 million easily preventable child deaths a year; double the number of people killed worldwide in road traffic accidents.

Read more: WaterAid, 07 Jul 2008

Improving access to water, sanitation, and hygiene was also discussed in the editorial and podcast of The Lancet on 28 June 2008. The editorial mentioned how a new WHO report highlights how 9.1% of the global disease burden could be reduced by improved access to water and sanitation and by a staggering 15% in the 32 worst affected countries.

An upcoming analysis from the World Bank concludes that environmental infections and malnutrition are inextricably linked. However, these links have been neglected by policy makers in strategies aimed at improving child survival and development.

In July 2008, the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme will publish updated figures on water and sanitation coverage. The 2008 report is expected to have mixed results: despite some improvement, almost 600 million people in Africa still lack access to improved sanitation. Furthermore, 1·2 billion people worldwide still have no option but to continue to defecate in the open. Over 80% of these people live in 13 countries.

The Lancet, in partnership with leading global experts, will be publishing a Series to build on the evidence base of water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions and practices.

Source: Editorial. The Lancet ; vol. 371, no. 9631 (28 June 2008); p. 2145. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)60925-3 [free registration required]