Water Advocates urges leaders to go to source of global health issues - water & sanitation

WASHINGTON, DC, Nov. 4, 2005 -- Water Advocates on Wednesday issued the following statement urging government, industry, philanthropic, and community leaders attending the Global Health Summit to include extending access to drinking water and sanitation as a cornerstone of their efforts to address the critical global health needs.

"Drinking water is one of life's most basic necessities and because it is so basic, it is often overlooked," said David Douglas, President of Water Advocates. "The consequence of neglecting to extend access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation is measured in hundreds of thousands of lives lost each year. I hope that as leaders in global health convene this week in New York they will remember to address the source of many of the world's most deadly health threats by incorporating safe drinking water and basic sanitation facilities as catalysts for a large part of their global solutions. By coordinating our efforts we can ensure that the more than one billion people currently without clean drinking water are given the chance to enjoy one of life's most basic needs, safe water."

Around the world, more than 1.1 billion people lack safe, affordable, and sustainable drinking water and 2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation. Roughly 80 percent of disease in the developing world stems from lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Waterborne and water-related diseases kill between two and five million people a year.

Water Advocates is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing American support for worldwide access to safe, affordable, and sustainable drinking water and adequate sanitation. For more information go to www.wateradvocates.org.

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