Diarrhoeal diseases and respiratory infections are the main diseases that follow these pathways. Inadequate management of water resources, such as ponds, standing water in waste or containers and poorly maintained drains, causes diseases that are propagated by vectors such as mosquitoes.
Young children are the most vulnerable to inadequate WASH, which is responsible for 13% of all deaths in children under 5 years. This high disease burden could be largely prevented with existing interventions and prevention strategies, which are described in this report.
Access the global review Safer Water, Better Health.
The data can also be explored through WHO’s Global Health Observatory: this page shows the country-specific mortality rate attributed to exposure to unsafe WASH, while this page shows the country-specific numbers of deaths and DALYs from diarrhoeal disease that can be attributed to poor WASH. An interactive atlas allows users to map these and other indicators, and to filter by WHO region.
