Proper toilet facilities can save world's 1.8 million children from diarrhea-death annually! UN Report

The health of 2.6 billion people in the developing world is in jeopardy! The prime culprit is a lack of toilets. According to a new study, lack of proper sanitation facilities have been forcing billions to discard their excrement in bags, buckets, fields, and ditches, leading to infectious disease-related deaths like cholera, diarrhea, typhoid, and parasites.

poor sanitation leading to global mass death of ch

What is the secret behind much of Europe and North America not facing these disease-related problems?

It is that, they built sanitation systems in the 1800s -- keeping humans and their drinking water away from these pathogen-bearing fecal matters.

In contrast, nearly every other person in the developing world today lacks access to improved sanitation.

According to a report commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),

• 1.1 billion people -- one-sixth of the world's population -- get their water from sources contaminated by human and animal feces,

• 1.8 million children die annually from diarrhea. It could have been prevented simply by having a clean place to go to the bathroom,

• Roughly half of all developing countries' people have an illness related to sanitation and water quality.

The report says,

The lack of a safe, private, and convenient toilet is a daily source of indignity and undermines health, education, and income generation.

Though the costs of the global 'sanitation deficit' are severe, the report following up on the UN's Millennium Development Goals pledges to provide sanitation to 120 million additional people every year between now and 2015.