BMJ: Providing the world with clean water: Remains a complex problem, but time is running out

   Submitted by Siriel Admin on 2003 Dec 18 - 8:42pm 

   [Themes: Global issue | | •Causes & solutions | •Collective Rights ]

British Medical Journal 2003 ;327:1416-1418 (20 December)
Editorial by Rhona MacDonald, BMJ assistant editor

Some 150 years after John Snow discovered that a contaminated water pump was responsible for a localised cholera outbreak, two million people world wide still die every year from water related diarrhoeal illnesses.(1)(2) In 1854 John Snow did not know that an organism was responsible, but meticulous epidemiological studies and common sense led him to close the Broad Street pump, saving hundreds of lives. At the beginning of the 21st century, despite our extensive knowledge of the causes and prevention of water associated illnesses, 1.1 billion people around the world have no access to clean water and 2.4 billion have inadequate sanitation (1).

To read the article:

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1416