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These cases of four billion cases of diarrhoea per year (WHO 2002), is placing diarrheal disease globally as the third highest cause of morbidity(disease) and the sixth highest cause of mortality(death), accounting for 5.7% of the global disease burden.

This health impact is borne in particular by residents of the developing world, especially children (Parashar Bresee and Glass 2003, WHO 2004). Ninety percent of deaths from diarrheal diseases in the developing world occur in children under the age of five (WHO 2005). Every day around 6000 children die due to the lack of safe drinking water.

Women and children, particularly girls, bear an additional burden related to an inadequate water supply: time spent collecting and transporting water diminishes time available for other productive applications, especially school. Lack of access to safe water is strongly correlated with poverty, and the provision of safe drinking water is considered to be a fundamental step in a community's transition out of poverty. The international commitment to alleviating the global burden associated with inadequate drinking water was affirmed during the recent Millennium Development Goal (MDG) process

. One of these goals tackles water supply and sanitation directly, aiming to: "Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation" based on baseline data from 1990. Measuring progress in fulfilling this target is, accordingly, dependent on the definition used for 'safe drinking water.' The WHO differentiates between the concepts of 'safe' and 'improved,' which leads to some confusing results.

A concerted global effort in the 1990s resulted in over a billion people gaining access to safe water - 83 per cent of the world's population now (in 2002) use improved drinking water sources. However, a similar number of people (1.1 billion) are still forced to use unsafe water sources. Out of these 1.1 billion who are exposed to un-improved drinking water sources, 62% belong to Asia whereas Africa stands second in the list with 28%.

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* Contributed by: -
Amit Goel has done B. Tech. in Computer Science Engineering from Technological Institute of Textile & Sciences (TIT&S) Haryana. Worked as Software Engineer – Technology at HCL Technologies Ltd, New Delhi. Presently he is doing Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), Gujarat.
Mohit Goel has completed his Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Science) from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Delhi University & is currently working as QA Lead at Mtree Software Limited.