Sunny Ahn's WebLog

Safe drinking water.  It’s a basic service that many of us take totally for granted.  I turn the faucet on and expect to drink safe water (thanks to the great folks at our public water departments).  Yet I often wonder what the US would do if this wasn’t readily available to Americans.  It would certainly be one of the top items, if not the top item, on the national agenda to fix.  

As such, this totally frustrates me when I see that this basic and simple service in many parts of this world is just not available, mainly due to lack of financial resources and education.  And without proper filteration, many of the waterborne diseases (such as e.coli, rotavirus, salmonellosis, giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis, shilgellosis, amebiasis, cholera) are being consumed, unfortunately by many children.

According to my colleagues at Harvard, nearly 2 million children die each year from simple diarrhea, making it the 2nd largest cause of child mortality worldwide.  Interestingly, “over half of the hospital beds in the developing world are occupied by people suffering from preventable waterborne disease.”  1 in 6 people worldwide (1.1 billion people) do not have adequate access to drinking water, while 1 in 3 people worldwide (2.6 billion people) lack basic sanitation.

I encourage people to get better educated and get involved.  there are a number of websites that provide information of the problem such as http://www.psi.org/

This is a preventable problem that easily could save millions of people each year. 

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