These facts and more can be found at activewater.org/The_Hard_Facts.php
-884 million people lack access to safe drinking water. That's approximately 1 out of every 8 persons on earth.
-2.5 billion people lack access to basic sanitation with nearly half of that number having no facilities at all.
-Nearly 2/3 of people who lack access to clean water live off of wages of less than $2 a day.
-People who live in rural areas or slums often pay 5 to 10 times more money per liter of water than their wealthy counterparts living in the same city.
-Poverty and water scarcity force people to rely on unsafe sources of drinking water. It also means they cannot bathe or clean their clothes or homes properly.
-Mllions of women and children spend several hours a day walking 6 or more miles to collect water from polluted sources. Time that could be spent in school or practicing a trade that would benefit their family's current needs and future success.
-Poor water quality can increase the risk of such diarrheal diseases as cholera, typhoid fever and dysentery, and other water-borne infections. Water scarcity can lead to diseases such as trachoma (an eye infection that can lead to blindness), plague and typhus.
-Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. For children under the age of five, there is no greater cause of death than unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation.
-1.4 million children die each year from diarrhea. That's over 3,800 deaths each day from just one form of water-related sickness.
-About 3.3 billion people - half of the world's population - are at risk of malaria.
-Every year, there are about 250 million cases of malaria, resulting in nearly 1 million deaths.
-At any given time, close to half of all people living in developing nations are sufferring from a health problem related to water and sanitation deficits.
