IN developing countries, four-fifths of all the illnesses are caused by water-borne diseases, with diarrhoea being the leading cause of childhood deaths.
The global picture of water and health has a strong local dimension, with some 1.1 billion people still lacking access to improved drinking water sources, and some 2.4 billion to adequate sanitation.

Today, we have strong evidence that water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases account for some 2,213,000 deaths annually, and an annual loss of 82,196,000 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) (R. Bos, Dec. 2004).

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates indicate that, worldwide, over 2 billion people are infected with schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthes, and 300 million of these suffer serious illnesses as a result.

Malaria kills over a million people every year, and a large percentage of them are under five as well, mainly in Africa, south of the Sahara. In 2001, the estimated global burden of malaria amounted to 42.3 million DALYs, constituting 10 % of Africa’s overall disease burden.

Malaria causes at least 396.8 million cases of acute illness each year. Pregnant women are the main adult risk group. As one of the major public health problems in tropical countries, it has been claimed that malaria has reduced economic growth in African countries by 1.3 % each year over the past 30 years.
An estimated 246.7 million people worldwide are infected by schistosomiasis; and of these, 20 million suffer severe consequences of the infection, while 120 million suffer milder symptoms. An estimated 80% of transmission takes place in Africa, south of the Sahara.
Diarrhoea occurs worldwide, and causes 4% of all deaths and 5% of the health lost to disability.
In Bangladesh alone, some 35 million people are exposed, on a daily basis, to elevated levels of arsenic in their drinking water, which will ultimately threaten their health and shorten their life expectancy.
Of course, the lack of potable water facilities, or the inaccessibility to them, is a major contributory factor to the prevalence of water-borne diseases.
Lack of financial and other resources in many countries is a major cause for this problem. However, in many countries, governments do not have their priorities right; and, as such, more is spent on arms and ammunition and the military than on the social sector; and therefore their potable water supply facilities cannot cope with the growing demand for potable water. In some countries, it is an extremely scarce commodity.
In Guyana, we also suffered severely from an adequate potable water supply a couple of decades ago. In those days, women and children could be seen on a daily basis in all parts of the country, carting water for miles, in some instances. This was because the potable water supply system had virtually collapsed, and there was very little investment to improve it, because the government could not have cared less, as it had perpetuated itself through rigged elections.
Today, that situation has changed dramatically for the better, and we can be proud of the tremendous improvement that has been achieved in the water sector. This is not surprising, because the government has been investing heavily across the country to improve the water sector. In this regard, it has invested in excess of $15B in the water sector over the last 12 years, which has contributed to the provision of safe potable water to 98 percent of the population.

According to Chief Executive Officer (ag) of the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), Nigel Niles: “We have been seeing the building of treatment facilities all across Guyana; this has resulted in over 80,000 persons gaining access to safe, treated water and improving GWI’s coverage.”

Niles explained that there are several areas in the sector where the improvements are evident, among these being the improvement in hinterland water supply, pensioner subsidies, and the general upgrading of access to water across all the regions in Guyana.

Alluding to some of these instances, he said, “With regard to the hinterland, we are also grateful for the government’s intervention, and we have now drilled approximately 50 new wells in the hinterland, and given access to over 55,000 persons.”

In addition, the Government of Guyana has also interceded on the behalf of pensioners by subsidising the cost of water to this group, which, according to Niles, has gone from a total of 20,000 in 2005 to nearly 50,000 persons at present.