Water related diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and dysentery are believed to be the cause of more than 75 percent of the illnesses in developing countries. Poor drinking water, insufficient water, and unsanitary conditions are blamed for the deaths every day of approximately 2,000 children less than five years old. That is over 725,000 infants and small children that die every year from lack of sufficiently clean drinking water, or one every five minutes.
Considered an epidemic of water-related diseases, the world has begun to fight back against the unnecessary deaths of children because of unclean water supplies.
Water-Borne Diseases
Water is a natural carrier of many microscopic life forms such as worms and amoeba. The liquid also carries naturally occurring different microorganisms. Most of us drink the water and have no problems because the devastating organisms that contribute to cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, and other child-killing pathogens are not present in our filtered and treated water. However, for a great many people, the water is neither filtered, nor safe for drinking, cooking, or bathing – it can kill.
Health-Related Problems
If the problem stopped at the death of all the small children, it would be devastating enough, but the trouble expands much further. According to the CDC, over 41 million people suffer from disease-related blindness called Trachoma, and millions more have Guinea Worm disease which causes large meter long worms to create homes inside the lower half of the person’s body that eventually emerge through painful blisters, resulting in infections and death.
Growth Total Matters
Although many people are unaware of the rising crises that face so many people in undeveloped countries, they are becoming aware of water problems growing in the first-world countries as fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes rampage through the landscape and destroy or disrupt clean water supplies.
As emergencies interrupt the normal way of life for millions each year in the more developed areas of the world, the crises can be seen more clearly when dirty water is all there is to drink.
Illness Creates Problems
The percentage of water in the human body is between 60 and 75 percent. When that water is dirty, contaminated, or bacteria-infested, the body can’t help but become the same. That means women aren’t strong enough to take care of their families, men become too ill to work, and children are prevented from going to classes to learn how to become productive members of society.
The lack of clean water also means that someone else has to take responsibility for caring for the ill or recuperating person, provide medicine the family often can’t afford and supply food for the ill person and their family. In other words, the situation of dirty water is not an isolated event, nor is the lack of sanitation.
When one member of a community becomes ill or in need of help, it can quickly become a burden on the whole community. Instead, it can become a very serious situation.
Global Well-being Issue
To fight dirty water diseases and make clean water a right for millions of people has become a goal of many successful entrepreneurs and Chris Sacca and his wife are among those to first become aware of the devastating nature of poor water qualities among many areas of the world that adversely affect women and children each day.
To counter the growing problem, the whole Chris Sacca house financially supports a charitable foundation called ‘charity: water’ founded by Scott Harrison. Through the charity’s efforts, they have dug wells to provide clean water throughout Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bangladesh.
Basic Clean Water
The lack of clean water and poor sanitation statistics are shocking. Almost 2.1 billion people live without the ability to drink, wash, or cook with clean water. Worse yet, more than 4.5 billion people lack proper sanitation. With ample clean water in their lives, poverty can be avoided as parents are healthy enough to work and support the community.
Students are strong enough to learn and thrive when there is clean water to fill their bodies and safe sanitation to prevent diseases. Clean water also helps crops flourish and multiply and lessens hunger and famine as families begin growing household gardens. Clean water can also aid poor communities by saving them money on medical supplies for diseases that are dirty water related.
The lack of access to ordinary clean water doesn’t have to harm or kill in the future. Science is improving ways wells are built, and how villagers can collect water each day. Chris Sacca states in one of his articles about the need for clean water as a right for everyone that ‘one of the craziest things anyone can do is nothing.’
He is right about one thing; clean water should be a right, not a privilege.
