Water and Change # 2

Water and the MDGs  Access to safe drinking water is a major global public health concern, and one of the MDG’s;  It is estimated that 1 billion people currently do not have access to potable water, suited for drinking and feeding;  MDGs are the Millenium Development Goals, which are objectives of global development that must be achieved by 2015.

ACCESS TO SAFE DRINKING WATER ( )

UN’S MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

 As seen on the MDGs tables, access to safe drinking water is a major concern listed and an important goal;  The goal is to halve the proportion of people without access sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015;  By that, it means that “drinking water”is the same as potable water, which is water that is safe for use as beverage, in cooking and personal hygiene;  “Access” is understood as a source of water than it is no more than 1 km away from the place where it will be used, and it is possible to obtain at least 20 litres per member of a household per day on a regular basis;  “Safe” water is the water that meets the WHO (World Health Organization) standards of hygiene.

In a nutshell...  Access to safe drinking water must be understood as the measure of the proportion of people using improved drinking water resources, which includes household connections (such as piped water), public standpipes, bore hole, protected dug wells, protected springs or rainwater.

 For once, there is a high risk of contracting life-threatening diseases by doing that, such as cholera, diarrhoea, schistosomiasis, hepatitis and hookworm (ancilostomiasis or popularly known in Brazil as ‘amarelão’)  About 1.6 million people die every day because of diarrhoea and cholera that were caught from unclean water supplies; 6 million lose sight because of schistosomiasis and 133 million suffer from intestinal infections caught from unsafe water Why is such a huge problem using unclean water?

Hookworm Schistosomiasis Rabbit Intestine: With Cholera (L) and healthy one (R)