CEPIS: Water Crisis Threatens Health and Development

A pushcart vendor sells potable water door-to-door in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. ©Armando Waak/PAHO

Shortages of water could become a major obstacle to public health and development, according to the Pan American Center for Sanitary Engineering and Environmental Sciences (CEPIS), one of nine specialized centers of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

In a special report prepared for Inter-American Water Day 2003, on Oct. 4, CEPIS noted that while the world's population has quadrupled since 1900, water consumption has increased ninefold and industrial water consumption has risen by a factor of 40. Yet water as a resource is limited, nonrenewable and poorly distributed, says CEPIS. "The quantity of available water remains the same. Its scarcity could be a serious obstacle to development in the millennium."

As important as the amount of water available is its quality. Worldwide, more than 10 million people—half of them under 18—die annually from diseases related to unsafe drinking water. In developing countries, 70 percent of poor people lack access to treated water. In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 130 million people live without safe drinking water in their homes, according to CEPIS.

Inter-American Water Day is observed each year to raise consciousness about the importance of water and to alert governments, international organizations, and private entities about the need to improve drinking water supplies. Water contamination is closely linked to bacterial, parasitic, and other water-borne diseases, especially cholera and diarrhea. If poorer households in the Americas received basic drinking water and sanitation services, morbidity from diarrhea could be reduced by 17 percent every year.

One of the health targets of the Millennium Development Goals is to cut by half the proportion of people without safe water and sanitation by the year 2015.

In addition to Inter-American Water Day, 2003 marked the International Year of Fresh Water, declared by the United Nations General Assembly with the slogan "Water: Let's not take it for granted."

Other water facts pointed out by CEPIS include:

• An estimated 75 percent of people suffer from chronic dehydration.
• Lack of water is a leading cause of common fatigue.
• Drinking eight to 10 glasses of water per day may reduce back and joint pains.
• Drinking five glasses of water daily may reduce the risk of colon cancer by 45 percent and bladder cancer by 50 percent.

Cosponsors of the 2003 Inter-American Water Day included the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Inter-American Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, the Organization of American States, PAHO, and the U.N. Environment Program's regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean. These organizations are working with PAHO to mobilize national and local actors including municipal authorities, citizen water committees, and health promotors to champion the cause of clean water.