Water and Health
Water-related diseases are the single largest cause of human sickness and death. There are four main types that affect the poorest people:-

1. Faeco-oral infections that are spread by poor hygiene and dirty water. These include diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and dysentery. With a clean water supply, the risk of catching one of these diseases is significantly reduced.
2. Poor hygiene can spread skin and eye infections including trachoma, an important cause of blindness.
3. People can catch various worm infections, particularly schistosomiasis (bilharzias) by wading in water contaminated with excreta and the snails that carry the parasitic larva. These larva burrow into the soles of people's feet.
4. Diseases spread by insects that breed in standing water, such as mosquitoes. Malaria is a disease carried by mosquitoes that kills one million people a year worldwide.