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Some 110,000 children die of water diseases annually in Bangladesh

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-09 14:17

DHAKA-- Every year, about 110,000 children under the age of five die of water borne diseases in Bangladesh due to lack of sanitation, leading English newspaper The Daily Star reported Sunday.

According to official health statistics, 65 million children under five in the country are affected by water borne diseases because of lack of sanitation annually, the newspaper said.

The UN sources said under the global scenario of urbanization and population growth are threatening one of the UN's most ambitious millennium development goals. The UN had hoped to halve the number of people without access to clean drinking water and sanitation by 2015.

But, progress has slowed due to population increases and unexpectedly high migration to urban areas, the World Health Organization and the United Nations International Children's Emergence Fund (UNICEF) said.

They estimated some 2.6 billion people worldwide have no sanitation and every year 1.6 million children under the age of five die because of such a lack of access.