Sanitation Facts
- Only 62% of the world's population has access to improved sanitation – defined as a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact.
- 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who have no facilities at all.
- The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter.
- Lack of sanitation is the world's biggest cause of infection.
- At any one time, more than half of the poor in the developing world are ill from causes related to hygiene, sanitation and water supply.
- 88% of cases of diarrhea worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene.
- Of the 60 million people added to the world's towns and cities every year, most occupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities.
- It is estimated that improved sanitation facilities could reduce diarrhea-related deaths in young children by more than one-third. If hygiene promotion is added, such as teaching proper hand washing, deaths could be reduced by two thirds. It would also help accelerate economic and social development in countries where sanitation is a major cause of lost work and school days because of illness.
