World toilet day: ‘Unhygienic conditions kill thousands’

An international agency warned on Tuesday that health of children and their communities is at grave risk if the slow progress on sanitation and the entrenched practice of open defecation among millions around the world continues to persist. On the occasion of World Toilet Day, a press release issued by Unicef revealed that Pakistan stands third as the contributor to the total number of people who do not have access to toilets, with 41 million people defecating in the open, after India and Indonesia at first and second place. In 2013, more than 340,000 children under five died from diarrhoeal diseases due to a lack of safe water, sanitation and basic hygiene. These include 53,300 Pakistani children.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2014.